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J3EM0CRACY AND DRED SCOTT. 

SPEECH DELIVERED BY 

Before the Freeport Wide Awakes, at Plymouth Ball, Monday Erening, Aug. 14, 1860. 



Published by Order of the Joint- Executive Committee of the Freeport Wide Awalies, and the Republican Club. 



' Mr. Atkins, being introduced to the au- 
dience by Oapt. Mills, said : 
Mr. Chairman and my Fellovf Citizens : 

In the political discussions of 1852, the 
Slavery issue had uo part. The Whig 
party, and the Democratic party, r\t Bc-iUi- 
moiv, had both resolved, that they would 
not discuss the question in Congress or out 
of Congress. In that canvass Franklin 
Pierce was elected, triumphantly, and sus- 
tained by an overwhelming Demosratic ma- 
jority in both branches of Congress. Be- 
fore his administration was half through, 
it became necessary, in the ordinary course 
of legislation, for territorial governments 
to be organized for the territories of Kansas 
and Nebraska. Stephen A. Douglas, of the 
United States Senate, as chairman of the 
committee on territories, reported fiom his 
committee, a bill for their organization. — 
That bill was similar in its provisions to 
all of the previous bills under our govern- 
ment, for the organization of Territories — 
it contained no clause repealing the Mis- 
souri Compromise. Senator Dixon of Ken- 
tucky, in conjunction with Senator Atchi- 
son of Missouri, made a proposition to Mr. 
Douglas to introduce into those territorial 
charters a clause repealing the Missouri 
Compromise. Mr. Douglas took the mat- 
ter under advisement, and in just nineteen 
days and a half, I think, introduced other 
bills, each containing a repealing clause, in 
these words : 

That the Ooastitution and all laws of the United 
States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have 
the same force and effect within the Territery of Kan- 
sas (and Nebraska) as elsewhere within the United 
States, except the eiahth section of the act prepara- 
tory to the admission of Mi-ssouri into the Union, 
approved March mxirth, eighteen hundred and. twen- 
ty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of 
non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the 
States and Territories, as recognized by the legisla- 
tion of 1&50, commonly called the compromise meas- 
ures, is hereby declared inoperative and void ; it 
being the true intsnt and meaning of this act not to 
legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 
exclude it iherefrom, but to leave the peop'.e thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic in- 
stitutions in their own way, «t<?y6ei only to the Con- 
stitution of the Unite<l States. 



The voice of this nation had not asked 
for that repeal. No petitions had been 
sent up to Congress praying that it migh', 
be done. Indeed Judge Douglas himself, 
had previously said that " the Missouri 
Compromise had an origin akin to that of 
the Constitution of the United States, con- 
ceived in the spirit of fraternal affection." 
and that it " had been canonized in the 
hearts of the Amei-ican people as a sacred 
thing, which no ruthless hand would ever 
be reckless enough to disturb." Is it any 
wonder that the nation was surprised and 
shocked — thw.t the fires of agitation were 
again kindled all over this Republic — that 
during the memorable struggle on the pas- 
sage of that bill, petitions were sent up to 
Congress, signed by thousands upon thou- 
sands, praying, not that the Missouri Com- 
promise might be repealed, but that tho 
"ruthless hand" of Judge Douglas be 
stayed, and like the eight hundred New 
England clergymen, protesting, solemnly 
protesting against it ? The bill was passed, 
on the night of July 21st, 1854. A party 
triumph had been gained. The bells of the 
city of Washington were rung, and bon- 
fires were built in the streets of our na- 
tional capital, to celebrate it — to celehratethe 
triumph of slavery over freedom. 

In the meantime there arose a law case 
in Missouri ; an action of trespass vi ct 
armis, by Dred Scott, a negro, against one 
Sandford, who claimed to be his master, to 
try the question of Dred Scott's freedom, 
and the freedom of his wife and children, 
which case found its way into the supreme 
court of the United States. The facts in 
the case were that Dred Scott was brought 
by his master, voluntarily on the part of 
his master, in 1834, to Rock Island, here 
into the free State of Illinois, upon our own 
soil, and for two years held in Rock Island 
as a slave — forty seven years after the adop- 
tion of the North West ordinance, that 
threw its protecting shield of freedom over 
all the territory from which the State of 
Illinois was formed, and si-'iteen years after 



O w> 



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the free State ooustitution of our State was 
adopted. Dred Scott was then taken to the 
military post at Ft. Sneiling, in Minnesota, 
and there held as a slave two years longer. 
During the time lie was at Ft. Sneiling, 
Dred Scott was married and had two chil- 
dren born. The case was argued in the su- 
preme court of the United States, at De- 
cember term, 1855, but for some reason the 
supreme coui't held back its decision ; it 
may have been, as 1 think, because the 
judges of that court were afraid, if then 
rendered, it would imperil the success of 
the Democratic party in the then coming 
presidential struggle. Then came the cam- 
paign of 1856, carried, nominally, on "pop- 
ular sovereignty," and the Democratic 
party weie ai;ain successful, if the electioa 
of James Buchanan can be considered a 
success. 

The President in his nessage lauded the 
supreme court, and called upon the people 
to sustain its decisions. This some people 
regarded as very singular, especially as 
their new president was elected upon the 
Cincinnati platform, which construes the 
Corstitution of the United States in regard 
"o Internal improvements, differently from 
%vhat the supreme couit had construed it, 
and by the seventh plank of that platlorm, 
" That Congress has no power to charter a 
National Bank," notwithstanding the su- 
pieme court had decided expressly to the 
c'lntrary. Up to that time the Democratic 
party was the only party in the country 
tiiat was opposed to decisions of the su- 
preme court. V7as it expected that the 
supreme court was about to decide a case 
in such a manner that the people's inherent 
sense of justice would be shocked by it — 
so far departing from the policy of the 
fathers, and the land marks of history, that 
the people would intuitively revolt at its 
monstrous doctrine? Let us judge, by the 
Dred Scott decision, which now came, and 
to which I beg to call your attention. T 
read from the regular report of that deci- 
f«ion by the supreme court Reporter — from 
the syllabus of that case : 

S Every citiien has ;i right to take with him into 
the Territory any article of (.roperty which the Con- 
atitViUOQ of the Uuiteil States recogaizes as property. 

4, Ihe Constitution of the United States recognizes 
slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Govern- 
ment to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise 
any more authority over property of that descriptiun 
than it may constitutionally exercise over property 
of any other kind. 

5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a cit- 
izen of the United States from taking with him slaves 
when he removed to the territory in question to re- 
Eide, id an exercise of authority over private prop- 
erty which is not warranted by the Constitution — and 



the removai of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that ter- 
ritory, gave him no title to freedom. 

And I read from the opinion of the court, 
delivered by Judge Taney, page 404, in 
speaking of the Negro race, the court says : 

On the contrary thpy were at that time considered 
as a subordinate and inferior cla a of beings, who had 
been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether 
eviancipated or not, yet remained subject to their au- 
thority, (iTtd had no right.i orpHvileffes e>cept such 
as those who held the power and government might 
choose to grant them. 

And again the court says, in speaking of 
the negroes at the time of the adoption of 
our Constitution, on page 407 : 

They had for more than a century before been re- 
garded as beings oi an inferior order, and altogether 
unlit t« associate with the while raee, either in social 
or |>olitical relations, and s> far inferior, </jr(/ tJiep 
had NO rights ickich the tuMte man was hound to 
respect; and that che negro might j^istly and lawfully 
be reduced to slavery for his beneBt He was bought 
and sold, and treated as an ordinary artitile of mer- 
chandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made 
by it. 

And on page 410, after quoting from the 
Declaration of Independence, the court by 
Judge Taney, says : 

The general words above quoted would seem to em- 
brace the whole human family, and if they were used 
in a similar instrument at this day would be so un- 
derstood. 

And then Judge Taney proceeds to over- 
rule that Declaration, and that, too, by a 
system of pett}'' special pleading and petti- 
toging, which, if adopted by a Freeport 
lawyer in Judge Seem's court, would in- 
sure for him a fine for contempt. [Laugh- 
ter ] And Judge Taney proceeds with the 
opinion of the Court, as follows, on pages 
451-2 : 

And if the Constitution recognizes the right of prop- 
erty of the master in the slave, and makes no distinc- 
tion between that description of property and other 
property owned by a citizen. NO tribunal, acting un- 
der the authority of the United States, whether it he 
legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw 
such a distinction, or deny to it. the benefit of the 
provisions and guarantees which have beea provided 
for the protection of private property against the en- 
croachments of the G'lvernmt-nt. 

Now, we have already said in an earlier part of 
this opinion, upon a ditferent point, that the right of 
properly in a slave is distinctly and expressly af- 
firmed in the Cnnstitution. 

Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the 
court that the act of Congress which prohibited a cit- 
izen from Violding and owning property of this kind 
in the territory of the United States north of the line 
therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitu- 
tion, and is therefore Toirf / and that neither Dred 
Mcott himself, nor any of his family, were made free 
by being carried into this territory, even if they had 
been carried there by the owtjer with the intention of 
becoming a permanent resident. 

And Judge Campbell, who agreed with 
the court, but thought the case of suflBcient 
importance to warrant his filing a separate 
opinion, on page 576 says : 

" Wherever a master is entitled to go within the 
United States, his slave may accompany him, without 
any impediment from, or fear of, Congressional Leg- 
islatian »r interf«rence." 



<^ We all know that a master may go anj'- 
where within the United States that he 
pleases, into any free State, and stay as 
long as he may choose — he may come here 
into the free State of Illinois, if he will ; 
and become a " permanent 7-esident," if he 
like ; but we never supposed —the fathers 
of our Republic never dreamed — that he 
could bring with him his slave property in 
defiance of all law. 

Let us see what Democrats think of this 
decision. President James Buchanan, 
elected alone by Democratic votes, in his 
annual message to Congress, on December 
19, 1859, says : 

I cordially congratulate you upon the final set- 
tlement by the Supreme Cour. of the United States of 
the question of slavery in the territories, which had 
presented an aspect so truly formidable at the com- 
mencement of my administration. The right has been 
eetablished of every citizen to take his property i f 
any kind including Haves, into the common Terri- 
tories beloncini; equally to all the States of the Cfm- 
lederacy, and to have it protected there under the 
federal constitution. Nei'her Congress, NOR A TER- 
RITORIAL LEGISLATURE, NOR ANY HUMAN 
POWER, has any authority to annul or impair this 
vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the 
country, which is a co-ordinate branch of the govern- 
luent, has sanctioned and affirmed these principles 
of C'.iustitutional law. 

If this is not a total denial of popular 
.sovereignty, I am altogether mi.staken. — 
But lest there be some here who would not 
be willing to take the authority of James 
Buchanan on that question, let us see what 
Stephen A. Douglas, who claims (?) to be 
the father of popular sovereignty, has him- 
self said. At New Orleans, when speaking 
to a crowd of southerners and slaveholder.s, 
Mr. Douglas said : 

/, in common icith the Democracy of IlUnois^ ac- 
cept the decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
tiUitea. in the Dred Scott case, as an authoritative 
exposition of the Constitution. Whatever limitations 
the Constitution, as expounded by the Courts, im- 
poses on t^e authority of a Territorial Legislature, we 
cheerfully recognize and respect, in conformity with 
that decision. Slaves are recognised us propertt/, 
and placed on equal footing with all other proper- 
ty. Hence the owner of slaves — the same as the owner 
of any other species of property — has a right to 
remove to a Territory and carry his slaves with 
him." 

I wonder what the followers of Stephen 
A. D'^uglas, who are claiming to be popular 
sovereignty men, think of that declaration 
of his ? Was he authorized to speak for 
the Illinois Democracy ? But, he made 
another speech, at the invitation of the 
United States circuit court grand jury, at 
Springfield, in this State, on June 12, 1857, 
in which he endorses the Dred Scott de- 
cision, as follows : 

The court did not attempt to avoid responsibility by 
disposing of the oa»e upon technical points without 
touching the merits, nor did they go out of their way 
to decide questiom? cot preperly before them and di- 



rectly presented by the record. Likehoncst and con - 
scientious judges, as they are., they met and decided 
each point as it arose, and taittifully performed ttie'r 
whoJM duty and nothine but their duty to the country 
by determining all the questions in the case, and 
nothing but what was essential to the decision of the 
case upon its merits. 

And Mr. John.son, now running on the 
same ticket with Mr. Douglas as a candi- 
date for Vice President, speaking in regard 
to tfie exc!u.-<ion of slavery from the terri- 
tories, held forth as follows : 

For the purpose of thi-; qut^'tion, it matters not 
where the powKr of legislating for the territori' resides 
— whether exc'usively in Congress, or jointly in Con- 
gress and the inhabitants, or exclusively in the inhab- 
itants of the territory ; the power is precisely the same 
— no greater in the hands of one than the other. I7! 
no event, can the slaveholder of the i-'outh be excluded 
from settling in such territory with his pkoperty of 

EVERY DESCHIPTION. 

However, lest the individual .statement of 
these men should not be taken as authori- 
tative expositions of Democracy, let us see 
what they say in their party platforms. On 
the fourth day of January last, on the oc- 
casion of election of delegates to the Na- 
tional Democratic Convention at Charles- 
ton, the Douglas democracy of Illinois, in 
State convention, at Springfield, adopted 
these two resolutions : 

3. That all questions affecting the validity or con- 
stitutionality of any territorial enactments, shall oe 
referred for final decision to the Supreme Court of the 
United States as the only tribunal by the Constitution 
which s competent to determine them. 

Resolved, That we recognize the paramount judi 
cial authority of the supreme court of the United 
States, as provided in ths Constitution, and hold it to 
be the imperative duty of all srood citizens to re.spect 
and obey the deci-ions of that tribunal, and to aid by 
all lawful meai s, in carrying them into faithful execu- 
tion. 

And the Breckinridge wing of the Dem- 
ocratic party, adopted the following resolu- 
tions, at Baltimore, on June 23d, 1860, on 
which Breckinridge and Lane now stand : 

1. That the government of the Territory organized 
by an act of Congress is provisional and temporary, 
and during its existence all citizens of the United 
States have an equal right to settle with their prop- 
erty in the Territory, without their rights, either of 
person or property, being destroyed or injured by 
Congressional or Territorial legislation. 

2. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, 
in all its departments, to protect the rights of persons 
and property in th« Territories, and wherever else its 
constitutional authorit.y extends. 

And the Douglas Democracy, at Balti- 
more, on the same day, adopted the follow- 
ing, commonly known as the " Wickliffe 
resolution : " 

Resolved, That it is in accordance with the Cincin- 
nati Platform, that during the existence of Territorial 
Governments, the measure of restriction, whatever it 
may be, imposed by the Federal Constitution on the 
power of the Territorial Legislature over the subject 
of the domestic relations, as the satne has he«n or 
shall hereafter he decided by the supreme court of 
the Uniied States, should be respected by all good 
citizens, and enforced with promptness and fidelity hy 
ev«ry bran^ch of the General Oovern/mfrnt. 



There is no claim made that the Breck- 
inridge democracy are at all in favor of 
popular sovereignty, and in view of this 
Wicklifte resolution there can be less claim 
made that the Douglas Democracy are. — 
The only difference between the two wings 
is, that the Breckinridge democracy are 
satisfied with the supreme court decision, 
as vow made, while the Douglas wing is 
pledged to anythiiig the supreme court may 
he-reafler decide, no matter what. How- 
ever, as there may be, just possibly, some 
popular sovereignty man that thinks Doug- 
Ins does not stand upon this Wicklifie res- 
olution, let me read what Douglas says in 
his letter of acceptance : 

Upon a careful exaniinati.m of the platform of prin- 
ciples adopted at Charleston and reaffirmed at Balti- 
more, with an aiiditionai resolution which is in perfect 
harmony with the others, I find it to be a faithful em- 
bodiment of the time honored principles of the Dem- 
ocratic party. 

The identical Wickhffe resolution being 
the only " additional resolution which was 
adopted at Baltimore," and the one to which 
Mr. Douglas refers. x\nd again, near the 
cio.se of his letter : 

Every ri.tht guaranteed by the Constitution must he 
protdcted by law in all cases where !leE;islation Is 
necessary to its engagements. The judicial authority, 
as provided hv the Constitution, must he sustained 
and »7« decisions implicitly obeyed and faith fully e«- 
ecitted. 

Remembering what the Dred Scott case 
decides, even as Douglas himself renders 
that decision in his speech at New Or- 
leans, what man in his sober senses can 
pretend to believe that there is a single 
.shred of popular sovereignty left in the 
Democratic party. 

Let us now resume the Dred Scott case, 
and see to what the Democratic party, and 
both wings of it, by the declarations of 
their leaders, and . their platforms, are 
pledged. The Dred Scott Case decides : 

1st, That "Negroes have NO rights which 
white men are bound to respect," and con- 
sequently that no person that has the first 
particle of African blood in his veins, can 
be a citizen of the United States, even to 
the extent of being aMe to stie in its courts 
for his liberty, or the liberty of his child 
that has been hidnnpjjed. 

2d, That the right of propeity in human 
beings is distinctly affirmed in the Con- 
stitution. 

8d That consequently Slavery cannot be 
prohibited in the territories by any author- 
ity iphatever, nor any where else where the 
Constitution is the paramount law. 

4th That Dred Scott was lawfully held as 
a slave both at Rock Island in Jllinois, and 



ai Ft. Sii ell ing ; and that it would have 
made no difference had he been taken 
there with the intention of a permanent 
residence. 

That IS Democracy. That is Breckin- 
ridge Democracy, and it is Douglas Democ- 
racy. Slavery Natioiiai; Liberty Sectional. 
Slavery the rule; Liberty the exception. 
S'avery first ; Liberty afterwards. "To 
this complexion has it come at last." 

Let us see what the Republican party 
say. I read the seventh plarik in their plat- 
form, adopted unanimously by the Repub- 
lican party, in National Convention, at Chi- 
cago, May 17th ISGO: 

"• That the new dogma that the Coii8tituUoH,o/"?7/i 
ovjTi force, cuTrita Slavery into any or all of the Ter- 
rit<u-ie8 of the United States, is a dangerous political 
heresy, at variance with the explicit proyisionsof that 
instrument itself, with cotemporaneous exposition, 
and with legislative and judicial precedent ; is revo- 
lutionary in Its tendency, and subversive of the peace 
and harmony of the country 

Now I hope I have clearly presented one 
of the political issues of the campaign — the 
main one. Need I do more i* Is not a plain 
statement of the case suflBcient to lead every 
lover of Free Labor to choose the Republi- 
can creed? Should I stop here, have I not 
already produced in my speech a convinc- 
ing argument? (Applause) 

But I will not stop here. I am going to 
call your attention for a little while to what 
the Fathers of this Republic have done 
and said about this matter. Stephen A. 
Douglas, in his speech at Columbus, Ohio, 
said "our fathers when they framed the 
Government under which we live, under- 
stood this question just as well, and even 
better than we do now." I think so too. 
And Patrick Henry has left the declaration 
upon record that he had "no lamp by which 
his feet were guided, except the lamp of the 
past." I have not. Have you ? Has the 
world? Let us then turn our eyes to the 
past and see how far the modern Democra- 
cy have departed from the policy of the 
fathers — how much has been uprooted, 
overturned and overruled by the Dred Scott 
decision. And for the sake of a little 
method I will trace the legislation that is 
overruled and abrogated by the Dred Scott 
case ; and second, the decisions of the Su- 
preme Covrfs of various States, where pre- 
cisely similar facts to the Dred Scott case 
have been passed upon ; and third the 
decisions overruled by this Dred Scott 
case heretofore made by the Supreme Cotirt 
of the United States, when Marshall and 
Story were on the bench. 

First then the Legislation ; and first of all 



the Declaration of Independence, that 
grandest act of legislation in all the history 
of the world — upon which our subsequent 
Constitutions and Statutes rest — I read : 

We hold th«8e truths to be self evident — that all 
men are created equal ; that they are eniiowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rightp; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness; that to secure these rights, governments are 
instituted among men, deriving theirjust powers from 
the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form 
of government becomes destructiveof these emis, it is 
the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to in- 
stitute new a government, laying its foundation upon 
such principles, and organizing its power? in such 
form, as to them shall seem most liicely to effect their 
safety and happiness. 

And who were some of the Fathers that 
so declared ? Among them I find John 
Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, 
Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William 
EUery, Roger Sherman, John Witherspoon, 
Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, Charles 
Carroll, George Wythe, Richard Henry 
Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Lightfoot 
Lee and Edward Rutledge — great and im- 
mortal names, and great and immortal too 
were the truths they told in that old Dec- 
laration of American Independence —it 
has come down to us from their hands em- 
balmed in the best blood of our fathers. — 
Judge Taney, in the Dred Scott decision 
that I havejust read to you, overrules it, 
and fritters away the meaning of its glori- 
ous words ; Democrats, since 1854, grow 
red in the face when you remind them of 
it ; Judge Douglas tells you that our fath- 
ers, who understood these matters better 
than we do ourselves, did not know the 
meaning of the terms they were using, that 
they only meant to say that Englishmen on 
this side of the Atlantic were equal to 
Englishmen on the other side ; Rufus 
Choatein making a Democratic speech tells 
his audience sneeringly that it is a ''string 
of meaningless phrases and glittering gen- 
eralities;" and Democratic Senator Pettit 
stands up in the Senate Chamber of this 
Republic, and denounces this declaration of 
self-evident truths as a "self-evident lie" — 
and when the people of his own State hare 
repudiated him, the Democratic party give 
him his reward by appointing him to ajudg- 
ship in a federal territory. Are there any of 
my hearers that would be willing to adopt 
any one of those opinions ? Go back with 
me to those dark and troubleous times of 
1776 — witness those thirteen dismembered 
Colonies, j ust beginning their feeble existence 
— without an army, without a navy, with- 
out tried leaders, without the equipments 
of warfare, without money, and without or- 
ganization among themselves ; — step into 



the old State House, in Philadelphia, and 
look around you upon those sober earnest 
men, the members of the Continental Con- 
gress on the morning of the fourth day of 
July 1776, when the committee of five be- 
fore appointed to draft the Declaration of 
Independence bring in their report — with 
what breathless attention they listen to the 
reading of it, their hearts throbbing like 
mufHed drums at the announcement of 
those immortal truths "that all men are cre- 
ated equal; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights: that 
among these are life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness." And then they go for- 
ward, one by one, to sign it, every one of 
them knowing full well that if they fail in 
their unequal struggle with England — the 
most powerful nation on the face of the 
globe, the beating of whose morning reveille 
kept equal pace with the sun in his journey 
around the world, whose victorious navies 
rode triumphantly the waves of every sea — 
then that Declaration they were signing 
would prove the death warrant of every one 
of them upon the scaffold. Yet they go for- 
ward. John Hancock writes his name 

" Dashine and bold, as if th« writer meant 
A double daring in his mind's intent." 

And the others — Stephen Hopkins with 
a palsied hand, but with a fearless and a 
patriotic heart, writes his name plain 
enough for the mmions of King George to 
read it; and Charles Carroll, of CarroUton; 
and Adams, and Gerry, and Sherman, and 
Morris, and Lee, Rutledge, and Jefferson — 
"there were giants in those days" — and re- 
lying upon the intrinsic justness of their 
cause, and the self-evident truths of the 
rights of human nature that they were de- 
claring, to their maintainance they mutu- 
ally pledged their "lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor." The glories of the 
Cross of Calvary shall pale away and fade 
from the remembrance of men, as soon as 
the moral grandeur and sublimity of that 
old Declaration shall be dimmed. Pile upon 
it, pyramid high, the decisions of cor- 
rupt and venal courts — beslime it %vith the 
mouthings of your Wigfalls, and your 
Keitts, and your Douglas, and your Pettits, 
and yet, while there is one man to honor 
the memories of John Hampden and Al- 
gernon Sidney — while there is one human 
heart groaning beneath oppression, or 
throbbing with the love of freedom, that 
old Declaration of American Independence 
by our fathers, will stand, a beacon light to 
beckon on to liberty. (Applause.) 



6 



Let us see what our fathers said less than 
two years after the Declaration of Independ- 
ence — I read from a venerable old book, 
entitled ''Secret Journals of Congress, Do- 
mestic affair s — 1775 — 1 778" — published by 
authority of Congress ; on April 29, 1778, 
page 70 : 

'' The committee appointed te prepare proposals to 
Buch foreign officers ami soldiers as incline to become 
citizens of America, brought in a report, which being 
read and amended, was agreed to as follows : 

To the officers and soldiers in the service of the 
King of Great Britain, not subjects of the said King : 

The citizens of the United States of America are 
engaged in a just and necessary war — a war in which 
they are not the ouly pers-.ns interested. They con- 
tend/or the i-iglits of human nature, and therefore 
merit the patronage and assistance of all mankind. 
Their success will secure a refuge from persecution 
and tyr inny to those who wish to pursue the dictates 
of their own consciences, and to reap the fruits of 
their own industry, Ac. 

And among those who put forth this lan- 
guage there are at least 16 of the original 
signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
Our fathers then were " contending for the 
rights of human nature," and were "not 
the only persons interested." Well might 
they say so — otherwise why should Lafay- 
ette, have " taken up his sword in defence 
of America ? " But on June 25, 1778, 
the adoption of the articles of confedera- 
tion being under consideration, I find anoth- 
er record, in the same book, page 331 : 

The delegates from South Carolina, being called en, 
moved the following amendments in behalf of their 
State : 

1st. In article fourth, between the words " free in- 
habitants," insert " white." 

Passed in the negative. Two ayes, eight noes, one 
divided. 

8d. After the words "several States," insert-' ac- 
cording to the law of such States reKptctively for the 
government of their own free white inhabitants." 

Passed in the negative. Two ayes, eight noes, one 
divided. 

The better to undei-stand these amend- 
ments, I now read the fourth article of the 
Articles of Confederation, ati it icould have 
read hac? these amendments offered by 
South Carolina been adopted : 

■ ARTICLE IV. 
The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friend- 
ship among t'le people of the different States of this 
Union, the free ( " WHITE " ) inhabitants of each of 
these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from 
justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and 
immunities of free citizens of the several States ; ( "ac- 
cording to the law of such JStates reisptctively for 
the government of their own free WHITE inhab- 
itants,") and the people of each State shall have free 
ingress and egress to and from any other State, Ac. 

Here our fathers had an opportunity, at 
the motion of the Slave State of South Car- 
olina — a State that has always been kicking 
out of the traces ; that " Old Hickory " 
taught some things ; the legislative So- 
lons of which last winter stood on the steps 
oj their State Capito! and cheered and de- 



rided the brutal mobbing of the Irishman 
Powers because he had declared that in his 
opinion "white laborers were degraded by 
being associated with slaves ; " that enter- 
tained serious intentions of mobbing the 
pro-slavery Democratic JSTational Conven- 
tion last spring, which may have been the 
reason why their second session was ad- 
journed to Baltimore — to restrict the Ar- 
ticles of Confederation to the white race 
alone. And this was on June 25, 1778, 
not yet two years after the adoption of the 
Declaration of Independence — if our fath- 
ers had made a mistake in the Declaration, 
here was an excellent opportunity offered 
to correct it — did they adopt the restriction? 
Not by any manner of means. The record 
is a short one, but very conclusive. — 
" Passed in the negative. Two ayes, eight 
noes, one divided." At that time the vote 
was taken by States, and only eleven States 
represented in convention. I cannot cer- 
tainly tell who voted against the restriction, 
but when the Articles of Confederation 
were finally adopted without the restriction 
the}' were signed by at least si.xteen of 
the original signers of the Declaration of 
Independence; Josiah Bqrtlett, John Han- 
cock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Wil- 
liam Ellery, Roger Sherman, Oliver Wol- 
cott, Samuel Huntington, Francis Lewis, 
John Witherspoon, Robert Morris, Thomas 
McKeap, John Penn, Thomas Hey ward, Jr., 
Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot 
Lee. 

Under those articles of confederation, 
thus adopted by our fathers, the eight long 
years of our revolutionary struggle were 
passed — the declaration of independence 
was made good, and our liberties placed 
upon a secure foundation. When the smoke 
of the battle had rolled away, and the 
United States of America were recognized 
a " nation among nations," there arose 
among ourselves many questions of inter- 
nal govermental policy ; and among them 
all there was none so important as the ter- 
ritorial question. Some of the States were 
claiming the title to immense tracts of un- 
settled country lying west of them, which 
had been secured to them by the revolution- 
ary war, and which others of the original 
thirteen States, that had no claim under 
their charters to the unoccupied territory, 
justly thought should be ceded to the gov- 
ernment of the United States at large, as so 
much of a fund to retrieve from ruin the 
national treasury. The tenth Continental 
congress, under the articles of confedera- 



tion, assembled at Philadelphia, Nov. o, 
1783, but adjourned next day to Annapo- 
lis, Marj'land. The House was soon left 
without a quorum, and so continued most 
of the time, of couri^e doing no business, 
till the 1st of March 1784, when the dele- 
gates from Virginia, in pursuance of in- 
structions from the legislature of that 
State, signed the conditional deed of cession 
to the confederation of all claim to the terri- 
tory northwest of the Ohio river. New 
Y«rk, Connecticut and Massachusetts had 
already made similar concessions to the 
confederation of their claims to the terri- 
tory westward of their present limits. — 
Congress hereupon appointed Messrs. Jef- 
ferson of Virginia, Chase of Maryland, and 
Howell of Rhode Island, a select commit- 
tee to report a plan of government for the 
western territory. Upon this committee, 
all were from States that were then and are 
now slave States. That committee report- 
ed, through Thomas Jefferson, the God- 
father of old time democracy, a plan, drawn 
up by Jefferson himself, which provided 
for the Government of all of the western 
territory, already ceded by the more aorth- 
ern States, and including that portion which 
had not yet been, but which, it was rea- 
sonably expected soon would be, surren- 
dered to the confederation by the States of 
North Carolina and Georgia, and which now 
forms the States of Tennessee, Alabama and 
Mississippi. I read from that famous re- 
port of 178-i so much as is necessary to 
show that it included all of the territory 
then owned by the United States, and all 
they expected to own by the cession of the 
various States, and that it excluded slavery, 
as follows : 

JResplved, That the territory ceded or to be ceded 
hy individiuU States, whensoever Ac. 

Provided, That both the temporaky and pkrva- 
NENT gorernmenta be established on these princi- 
ples as their basis : 

1. That they shall forever 'remain a part of the 
United States of Amer ca. 

2. That in their person?, property and territory, 
they shall be subject t» the government of the United 
States in Congress assembled, and to the articles of 
confederation in all thuse cases in which the original 
States shall be so subject. 

8 That they shall oe subject to pa/ a part of the 
federt^l debts, contracted or to be contracted, to be 
apportioned on them by Congress, according to the 
same common rule and manner by which the appor- 
uonoient thereof shall be made on the other States. 

4. That their respective governments shall be in Re 
publican forms, and shall admit no person to be a cit- 
izen who holds a hereditary title. 

5. That after the year ISOO of the christian era, 
there shall be neither slavkry nor involuntary ser- 
viTUDK in any of the said States, otherwise than in 
the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted to have been personally 
guilty. 



On the 19th day of April 1784, this plan 
for the government of the western territory 
came up for consideration in the old con- 
tinental congres.^i. Mr. Spaight of North 
Carolina moved that the fifth proposi'ion, 
excluding slavery after the year 1800, be 
stricken out of the plan of ordinance, and 
Mr. Read of South Carolina seconded 
the motion. The question was put in this 
form : " Shall the words moved to be strick- 
en out stand V " and on this question the 
vote was as follows : 

New Hampshire, Mr. Foster, Mr. Blanchard — sye. 

Massachusetts, Mr. Gerry, Mr. Partridge — aye. 

Khoae Island, Mr. Eltery, Mr. Howell — aye. 

Connecticut, Mr. Sherman. Mr. Wadsworth — aye. 

New York. Mr. Dewitt, Mr. Paine — aye. 

New Jersey. Mr. Dick — aye. No quorum. 

Pennijlvania, Mr. Mifflin, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. 
Hand — aye. 

Maryland, Mr. McHenry, Mr. Stone — no. 

Virginia, Mr. jEFFSRSON-aye, Mr. Hardy-no, Mr. 
Mercer-no — no. 

North Carolina, Mr. Williamson-aye, Mr. Spaight- 
no — Divided. 

South Carolina. Mr. Reed, Mr. Beresford — no. 

It is well to leok into this vote, for this is 
the first time in the history of the United 
States where an attempt was made to torm 
a territorial government ; and here we find 
sixteen in favor of Mr. Jeffeuson's restric- 
tion, to barely seren against it ; and the 
States divided six in favor of it to tJu^ee 
against it. But the articles of confedera- 
tion, by article nine, required an affirma- 
tive vote of all the States — that is, a vote 
of seven States — to cairy a propositior ; so 
this clause was defeated by the absence of 
one delegate from New Jersey, in spite of a 
vote of mo7-e than two to one in its/aror. — 
Had the New Jersey delegation been full, 
it must, to a moral certainty, have pre- 
vailed ; had Delaware then been repre- 
sented, it would probably have been car- 
ried, even without New Jersey. And in 
this vote we find at least three men who 
eight years before had signed the Declara- 
tion of Independence, William Ellerv, 
Roger Sherman, and Thom.\s Jefferson 
voting in favor of Jefferson's restriction, 
and only one voting against it, a Mr. Stone 
of Maryland, not a very famous man in 
history ; and these four were all of the men 
who had signed the Declaration in 1776, 
that voted on this measure in 1784, being 
three to one in favor of Jefferson's restric- 
tion. We also find that three men. El- 
bridge Gerry, William Ellery and Roger 
Sherman, voted on this measure in 175^4, 
who had six years before signed the articles 
of confederation, after the amendment of- 
fered by North Carolina proposing to re- 
strict those articles to the white race alone, 



had been so decidedly \oted down — and 
that every one of these men voted in favor 
of Jefferson's restriction. What kind of a 
pohcy do you suppose our fathers were en- 
deavoring to inaugurate in regard to the 
extension of slavery in the territories ? In 
view of the history of this matter I hope 
that no Democrat will ever again say that 
the slavery restriction was voted down in 
1784 — especially if he be a shrieker for the 
rule of the majority, yelcpt "popular sov- 
ereignty " — voted down by more than two 
voting in favor of -it to one against it. 

But the question came up again 3 years 
afterwards, in the last Congress held under 
the articles of confederation, which held its 
session at New York, at the same time the 
convention that framed the federal constitu- 
tion was in session at Philadelphia. The 
States of North Carolina and Georgia, did 
not, as it was supposed they would do, cede 
their territory to the general government ; 
and it became necessary to organize a ter- 
ritorial government for the territory north- 
west of the Ohio river, at that time every 
foot of territory owned by the United 
States. The famous northwest ordinance 
of July 13, 1787, was passed by that Con- 
gress unanimously, from which I now read. 
Purple's Statute of Illinois, page 28, as 
follows : 

Article VI. — There thaJl he neither slavery nor in- 
volwntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise 
than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted. 

This great territorial charter, comprised 
in territorial organization all the immense 
tract of country north of the Ohio and east 
of the Mississippi rivers, out of which five 
of the noblest States of this Union, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, 
have since been formed; and, mark you, 
this territorial bill did not, like the one of 
1784, propose to abolish slavery after the 
year 1800 merely, but throttled the monster 
instantly — the slavery restriction took ef- 
fect on the very day of the passage of the 
territorial bill — ther&. could be neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude in all that 
territory after the 13th day of July 1787, 
and the vote on the passage of the bill was 
unanimous. All honor to the fathers, who 
by this legislative act in our early history, 
set aside as the patrimony of freedom for- 
ever that vast territorial domain, which was 
every foot then owned by the Republic. — 
(Applause.) 

Time will not permit me to examine the 
debates in the Constitutional Conveintion. 
They drafted a Constitution and submitted 



it to the people, and the people in their 
various State conventions approved of it — 
adopted it as the great charter, to map out, 
direct and control, all the future legislation 
of our country. It begins with a preamble, 
and the preamble begins, " we the people," 
and I have not learned that the delegates 
from South Carolina proposed to amend it 
so as to make it read " we the ichite peo- 
ple," (laughter) for I presume they were 
pretty well satisfied with their decisive and 
memorable defeat in an effort of that na- 
ture eleven years before. I read from the 
Uiiited States Constitution, Freeman's Il- 
linois digest, pages 60-7. 

We, the people of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tyanquility, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain 
and establish this Osnstitution for the United States 
of America. 

ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3. 

1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into 
this Unicjn ; but no new State shall be formed or erec- 
ted witbin the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any 
State be formed by the junction of two or more States, 
or parts of States, without the consent of the Legisla- 
tures of the States concerned, as well as of the Con- 
gress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of, 
and make all needful roles and regulations re- 
specting the territgry or other property belonging to 
the United States ; and nothinfj in this Constitution 
shall be 30 construed as to prejudice any claims of the 
United States, or of any particular State. 

The preamble shows the reasons for the 
adoption of the Constitution " to secure the 
blessings of lilerty to ourselves and our 
posterity," said our fathers ; and in ar- 
ticle fourth they give Congress the power 
to admit new States, and " make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the 
territory," out of which new States were to 
be carved. Here is a direct grant of pow- 
er to the Congress of the United States in 
the Constitution, clearly expressed, to 
" make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the territory." And what does 
that mean ? Can Congress make a " rule " 
or a " regulation " except it be a law ? — 
Certainly not. Well then, if the grant of 
power had been to " make all laws respect- 
ing the territory," it would have been no 
broader than it now is, for Congress can 
make no " rule " or " regulation " except it 
take the form of " law." So thought our 
fathers, for the very first Congress, after 
the adoption of the Constitution, in pur- 
suance of that grant of power re-adopted 
by a law the north-west ordinance of 1787. 
"'jim Allen," the Douglas democratic can- 
didate for Governor of this State, in his 
joint debate with Senator Trurabuil the 



9 



other day at Bloomington, argued that the 
North-west ordinance of 1787 was adopted 
under the Articles of Confederation,, and 
by tlie adoption of the Constitution was 
abrogated, and therefore had no application 
to the Northwestern Territory at all. But 
"Jiui Alien" knew — he could not help 
knowing when he made that argument, 
that the fathers of this republic were care- 
ful to see to it that the very first Congress, 
that convened after the adoption of the 
Constitution of the United States should 
pass a law adapting the ordinance of 1787 
to the Constitution. Iftherei.sa Douglas 
Democrat in my audience, let me ask him, 
in all sober earnestness, " what do you 
think of a man, who, as Democratic can- 
didate for Governor of Illinois, will stan<l 
up before an intelligent audience of free- 
men, and wilfully pervert the plain truths 
oi history, as Mr. Allen did at Blooming- 
ton V Will you sustiin him in it ? Has 
your party sunk to that low depth of in- 
famy where your leaders must turn their 
backs upon the fathers of this Republic, 
and deny their action, and if so, will you 
longer cling to the failing fortunes of 
such a party ? Listen while I read 
from the United States statute at large, 
volume one, (and I have been to the 
trouble of looking these matters up from 
original sources, and bringing in these 
venerable old law books to read to this au- 
dience, lest, possibh', some wavering Dem- 
ocrat might "doubt my authority,") (ap- 
plause) on page 50, as follows : 

Chap. VIII- — An act to provide for the Govern- 
ment of the Territory Kortli west of t7ie river Ohio. 

Wherea/i, In order that the ordinance of the United 
StatfS in Congress assembled, for the government of 
the territory Northwest of the river Ohio mai/ con- 
tinue to have full effect it is requisite that certain 
provision;, should be made, so an to adapt the sam,e 
to the present Constitution of the United States, Ac. 

And then the act goes on to make those 
provisions necessary to adapt the ordinance 
to the Constitution. And this law of the 
first Congress under the Constitution was 
approved on August 7, 1789, by George 
Washington as President of the United 
States, (applause) the very man who was 
president of the Convention that framed 
the Constitution. The bill was presented 
by Hon. Thos. FiTZsiM3f0N>;, M. C, from 
Pennsylvania, on July 16, 178'.), when it 
was read for the first time, who was also a 
member of the Constitutional Convention, 
r do not find that the ayes and nayes were 
ever taken upon the passage of the law ; 
but I do find that there were at least eight 



men, Klbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, 
William Floyd, Robert Mori'is, George 
Clymer, George Read, Charles Carroll anl 
Richard Henry Lee, who had thirteen years 
before signed tlie Declaration of American 
Independence ; and /ice men who had 
eleven years before signed the Articles of 
Confederation ; and jij'teea men who were 
members of the Constitutional Convention, 
all of whom, at the time of the approval oi 
that law, had taken their »e<its in that first 
Congress of the United States under the 
Constitution, and I do not find that aj;y 
one of them ever voted or spoke against its 
pas.sage. And this law excluded slavery 
from all the northwestern territory— can ycm 
longer doubt what the territorial policy of 
the fathers was V Did these men, the fatr,- 
ers of the Republic, the framers of those 
fundamental laws upon which all our Ijo- 
erties rest, know what they were doing "r — 
Did they, from whose hands the Constitu- 
tion had just come, freshly framed, know 
the powers granted by that Constitution ? 
No man in his sober senses can deny but 
that they did — neither can he deny but 
that those powers we^e wisely and justly 
exercised. ( ipplause.) 

However, notwithstanding the fact that 
slavery had been excluded by law from the 
torritories, there was a Convention held by 
the people of the territory of Indiana ia 
180o, which Convention adopted a petition, 
in which they petitioned Congress among 
other things, to suspend for ten years the 
prohibition of slavery contained in their 
territorial charter ; and William H. IIak- 
KisoN, at that time their territorial Gover- 
nor, afterwards President of the United 
States, submitted their petition to Congress. 
Now, if in the history of our government, 
there ever teas a time when slavery should 
be extended into a territory, that time was 
in 1803. The government was heavily in 
debt ; the country was a wilderness, and 
at that time farther out on the western 
frontier than Pike's P^k is now ; business 
was stagnant and dull ; the commerce of 
the Mississippi valley was carried on by 
clumsy barges and flat boats, instead of the 
magnificent steamers of the pi'esent day ; 
the thrill whistle of the " iron horse" had 
not yet resounded through the western 
wilderness ; the harvests were gathered by 
the handsickle or scythe, instead ot the pat- 
ent reaper ; in the fall, the drumming of 
the flail was heard, instead of the humming 
of a patent thresher; in short, the mate- 
rialistic progress of the ago was then in its 



10 



earliet;t infancy. But what did our flnthers 
do with the petition of the people of In- 
diana 'i They appointed a special Cora- 
raittee of three to consider it, and John 
Randolph of Roanoke, himself a slavehold- 
er, who wa8 chairman of that Committee, 
reported thereon, on the 2d dav of March, 
1803, in the following language : 

" The rapid population of the State of Ohio suffic- 
iently evinces, in the opinion of your Committee, that 
tlie labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the 
growth and settlement of colonies in that region ; that 
this labor — demonsiral)ly the dearest of any — can 
only be unployed in the cultiva ion of products more 
valuable thaa any known to that quarter of the Unit- 
e J States ; that the Committpw deem it higlily dnn- 
gerouH and inexpedient to impair a jirovisiov) 
fT'isili/ calculated to promote th". happiness and 
prosperity of the northwatern country, and to give 
strength and securit> to that extensive frontier. In 
the salutary operation of this xagucioits and benevo- 
lent /'esirai/ii, it is believed that the inhabiiants of 
Indiana will, at no very distant day. find ample re- 
'numeration tor a temporary privation of labor, and 
OJ' emigration." 

And in theii report recommended the 
passage of the following resolution : 

" Resolved, That it is ineerpedient to suspend for 
a limited /tme. the operation of the sixth article of 
the compact between the original States and the peo- 
ple and States northwest of the river Ohio." 

And so the people of Indiana had to do 
without Slavery. Our fathers thought it 
"highly dangerous and inexpedient to im- 
pair a provision wi,sely calculated to pro- 
mote the happiness and prosperity of the 
North Western country." Honor them for 
it, (applause) for they saved Irom the curse 
of human bondage the soil of our own State 
of Illinois, then included within the territo- 
rial district of Indiana. 

Yet the people of that territory vi^ro, not 
satisfied, and five times, for five years in 
succession, from 1803 to 1807, they went 
up to Congress with a similar petition, and 
never once was their petition granted. And 
every time they thus petitioned, they ac- 
knowledged the authority of Congress to 
legislate in the premises; for if the law that 
they were petitioning to have repealed was 
unconstitutional, then it was no law, and 
the people of the then territory of Indiana 
might have wholly cfisregarded it. 

I find some amusing things in looking 
up this old record, and I think I have dis- 
covered the author of Squatter Sovereignty, 
notwithstanding Mr. Douglas speaks of it as 
"ray great principle" — at least it is the 
earliest mention of it that I have found. 
When Gen. Arthur St. Clair was governor 
of the northwestern territory, he made a 
speech before the territorial legislature, at 
Chilicothe, in which he said : 

For all internal affairs we have a complete Legisla- 
ture ef our own, and in f hem ar« n/3 aiore bound by 



an act of Coaeress than by ao Edict of the ?irst Con- 
sul of France, 

I hope Mr. Douglas in the next speech 
he makes down East, will acknowledge 
his indebtedness to Gen. St. Clair. (Laugh- 
ter). Well, at that time Thomas Jefferson 
was President of the United States, and 
J.\MES Madison, the father of the Constitu- 
tion, was his Secretary of State. When 
this clause of Gen. St. Clair's speech was 
shown to Jeffekson and his cabinet, what 
do you suppose they did? They wrote a 
"love-letter" (laughter) to the "father of 
Squatter Sovereignty, in these words : 

Sis : The President obesrving in an address lately- 
delivered by you to the Convention at Chilicothe, an 
intemperate and Indecorum of language towards 
the Legislature of the United States, and it 
disorginiziug spirit and tendency of every evil exam- 
ple, and gro^sly violating the rules of conduct enjoined 
k>y your public station, determines that your commis- 
sion of Governor of the Northwestern Territory shall 
cease on the receipt of this notification. 
I am, &c., 

James Madisom. 

Arthur St Clair, Esq., Chilicothe. 

Thus thought the good old democratic 
administration of Thomas Jeffekson, and 
they cut off the head of Gen. St Clair (ap- 
plause.) The modern democratic Presidents, 
Frank Pierce and "Jeems" Buchanan, have 
never doubted their constitutional authori- 
ty to cut off the heads of Territorial Gov- 
ernors, as attested in the long list of Kan- 
sas Governors that have been decapitated. 
But there is this difference between the 
modern democracy and the old time de- 
mocracy — Buchanan cuts off the heads of 
territorial Governors because they do not 
favor Slavery, but Jefferson applied the 
executive executionary guillotine because 
St. Clair did not favor liberty, (applause.) 
When "Honest Old Abe" is elected Presi- 
dent of these United States, and the Gov- 
ernor of some territory shall be insisting 
that he may curse the soil of the infant State 
with slavery, we expect Abraham Lincoln 
to direct his Secretary of State to write him 
just such a "love letter" as Thomas Jeffer- 
son directed his Secretary of State to write 
to Gen. St. Clair. (Laughter and applause.) 

Not long ago, a democrat, with an air of 
conscious triumph put this question to me, 
"why did Jefferson, and Madison and the 
fathers of this Republic, permit Slavery in 
the territory of Kentucky?" My answer 
was, that they did not, for Kentucky never 
passed through a territorial organization at 
all ; at no time in the history of this Repub- 
lic has the jurisdiction of the U. S. extended 
over Kentucky in other capacity than as a 
State— our fathers did not suppose, nor 



11 



does the Repubiican party today suppose, 
that there is any Jiulliority in Congress to 
exclude Slavery /Vf/rt a SUite ; the Republi 
can partj', however, believes that Congress 
has the authority to exclude Slavery from a 
territory — and so thought our fathers, and 
so they acted. Kentucky was formed with- 
in the limits of one of the original States, in 
which Slavery existed, and it was in that 
way that Slavery was entailed upon Ken- 
tucky. 

But what about Tennessee and Mississip- 
pi, in the Southwestern territory ? Let us 
look into the iiistoiy of that matter. I read 
Irom 1st U. S. Statute at Large, page 12t]: 

Chap. xiii. — An Aci for the Gocermnentofthe Tet- 
ritory oj the United iitates, Svuth of the Riner Ohio. 

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate "itc &c"Aud 
tht! goveriimeut of the said Territory South of the 
Ohio, shall be aimilar to that which is now exercised 
in the territory northwest of the Ohio; eo:cept go far as 
is otherwise provided in tl e conditions expressed in 
an Act of Congress of the present .session, entitled"an 
let to accept the Cession of claims of thR State of 
North Carolina, to a certain district of Western terri- 
tory." 

Now let us turn to the Deed of Cession 
by North Carolina, and see what the excep- 
tio/i,, above referred to LS. In same book, 
page 108, I read as follows; 

Provided ahcayn, That no regulation made or to 
he made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate Slaves. 

The Deed of Cession by the State of 
<jeorgia contained a similar provision to 
this one in the Deed of Cession from North 
Carolina. The reason why our fathers did 
not exclude Slavery from the Southwestern 
territory is now plainly apparent. The very 
deeds of Cession through which the U. S. 
acquired jurisdiction over that territory, 
had special clauses prohibiting Congress 
from exercising that authority — not deny- 
ing but that Congress had authority to 
make such a regulation for a territory, but 
saying, that if Congress accepts of our 
Deeds of Cession, Congress shall do so 7ipon 
the conditioTt, not to exclude Slavery. By 
putting these conditions in their deeds of 
cession, the people of North Carolina and 
Georgia plainly admitted the authority of 
Congress, without those conditions, to have 
excluded Slavery. And more than that, 
they plainly admitted that they well knew 
what the territorial policy of our fathers 
was, and that they were afraid that Con- 
gress would, in pursuance of their power 
under the Constitution, exclude Slavery 
from that territory, if they should, in good 
faith, as the more northern States had be- 
fore done, cede to the United States their 
territory untrammelled by such a condi- 
tion. History wili not permit us to lay the 



blame of Slavery in the Southwestern ter- 
itory at the doors of Congress. The odiura 
must rest alone upon the people ofNjrth 
Carolina and (reorgia. 

Meiely remarking that preparatory to 
the admission of all five of the Northwest- 
ern States, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon- 
sin and Michigan, Congress, by a law, refer- 
red to and acknowledged the binding au- 
thority of the ordinance of 1787, similar to 
the Act of Congress prtparaiory to the ad- 
mission of Illinois ; I now read that act, 3d 
U. S. Statute at large, pages 429 3o : 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House o' Represen- 
tatives of the United States of America, in Congress 
Rsacmbled, That the inhabitants of the territory of 
Illinois be, and they are hereby, authorized to form 
for themselves a coustitutiou and State governrascl 
Ac , itc. 

P! ovided.Tha.l the same, whenever formed, shall 
be Republican, and not >'epu(/iiant to the ordinance 
of the thirteenth of July, seventeen hundrttd and eighty 
seven, between the original Statet; and the people ami 
states of the territory northwest of the Rivtr Ohio. 

Approved, April 18, 1813. 

So you see that when the people of our 
own State of Illinois wished to adopt a 
Constitution, Congress passed an ennabling 
act, just as Congress did in the case of 
Kansas, in which Congress was careful to 
provide that no "provision wisely calculat- 
ed to promote the happiness and prosperi- 
ty of the Northwestern country" contained 
in the old ordinance of 1787 should in any 
way be abrogated or impaired. Do you 
rememoer the provision of the "English 
Bill" — the ennabling act for Kansas — offer- 
ing to admit her immediately, and bribing 
her with a land grant, if she would come 
in as a Slave State, but denying her admis- 
sion under her free State constitution? 
Compare that effort of the Democracy, to 
force Slavery upon a new State, with the 
careful action of our fathers to keep Slavery 
©ut. 

Illinois adopted a free State Constitution 
and came into the Union. It was long after 
the adoption of this constitution that Dred 
Scott was held at Rock Island, in this State, 
for two years, as a slave. I read from the 
old constitution of Illinois, 1st Purple's 
Statute, 31 : 

The people of the Illinois territory, having the 
right of admipsion into the general government as a 
member of the Union, consistent with the Constitu- 
tion of the United Statics, the ordinance of Congress 
of 1787, and the law of Congress approved April 18, 
1S18, entitled " An act to enal)le the people of the Ill- 
inois territory to form a constitution and state gov- 
ernment, and for the admission of euch State into tlie 
Union, on an equal footing with the original States, 
and for other purposes, '• in order to establish justice, 
promote the welfare and secure the blessings of liber- 
ty to themselves and their posterity, do, by their rep- 
resentatives in convention, ordain and establish the 
following Constitution or form of government, and do 



\2 



mutually atTco with each other to form Ihfinselves 
into » FREE aud indepenJent State by the iiaHie of 
the State of Illinois. 

Article VHI. — That the general, great and essen- 
tial principles of liberty and free government may be 
recognized and unalterably established we dkclark: 

See. 1. — That all men are born equally free and in- 
dependent, and have certain inherent and indefcafi- 
Me rights; among which aie those of enjoying and 
defending life and liberty, and of acquiring, possess- 
i.^g and protecting property and reputation, and of 
pursuing their own happiness. 

Who will say that with such a constitu- 
tion a slave may be held for one hour upon 
the soil of Illinois •, and yet Dred Scott was 
i.eld as a slave in our State two years, and 
the supreme court of the United States has 
decided that it gave him no title to his free- 
dom. 

Now came the compromise of 1820, fa- 
mous in the history of our countrj' ; that 
Stephen A. Doue;las first '' canonized in the 
hearts ot the American people " and de- 
clared "no ruthle.ss hand could be found 
reckless enough to disturb," and then with 
his own " ruthless hand " tore down, and 
trampled into the dust. I read from the 
act of Congress, approved Mnrch 6, 1820, 
3d U. S. Stat, at laige, page 548: 

Sec S.—And be it fvrthtr e-nacUd , That in ALL 
THAT TERRITORY ceded by France to the United 
States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north 
of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north lati- 
tude, not included within the limits of the S'ate con- 
templated by this act, slavery and iHvoluutary servi- 
tuiie, otherwise than in the punishment of "crimf's, 
wliereof the party .shall have been duly convicted, 
gnsll be, and is hereby, FOKEVEK PROHIBITED. 

Thus said our fathers in 1820, and by 
that law, as with a shield of freedom, they 
covered all of the territory then owned by 
the United States west of the Mississippi 
river and north of the line of thirty-six de- 
grees and thirty minutes, except the State 
of Missouri ; and that was the " Comprom- 
ise" — upon condition that Missouri came 
in a slave State, the balance, stretching 
westward as far as our possessions went, 
and northward to the British possessions, 
was dedicated to liberty forever. By the 
articles of Cession of this Louisiana territo- 
ry it was stipulated that no rights of prop- 
erty of the citizens of that country should 
he-impaired after the cession, and it was 
claimed, inasmuch a.s slaves were held by 
the old French settUrs in the settlement of 
St. Louis before the cession of the territory 
to the United States, that if Congress exclu- 
ded slavery from the territory within the 
limits ol the proposed State of Missouri, 
those rights of property would be impaired. 
However, no such objection could be made 
to excluding slaver^' from that part of the 
territory which our fathers did exclude it 
from, for every slave held within the Louis- 



iana purchiise before it was ceded to the 
United States would be included within 
the limits of the State of Missouri. The 
territory from which slavery was "forever 
prohibited" by this Compromise of 1820, in- 
cluded both Kansas and Nebraska, and al- 
so that " degree and a half, being more 
than five times the size of the State of 
New York " which Mr. Douglas, in the 
Senate on the 16th of May la<t, boastfully 
proclaimed to the South, that his principle 
of " nonintervention " had given to sla- 
very. The witty and talented Talleyrand 
was once asked the meaning of the word 
non intervention ; his reply was, " it is a 
word frequently used in European diplo- 
macy and means much the same thing as 
intervention." Should the principle of 
Mr. Douglas prevail, the verdict of the 
coming generation must be, " non inter- 
vention means intervention to extend sla- 
very over the soil from which our fathers 
had excluded it." 

It is claimed that the Compromise meas- 
ures of 1850 were settled by, and adopted 
upon Mr. Douglas' principle of "popular 
sovereignty ; " and I myself have heard 
"Dick Richardson," now running for Cjd- 
gres,«;, on the Democratic ticket in the fifth 
District, when Democratic candidate for 
Governor of Illinois, and Stephen A. Doug- 
las in his speech here in Freeport, in front 
of Mayers' Hotel, on October 27th, 1854, 
in support of that proposition, read the 
clause I now read from the bill establi.shing 
a Territorial Government for New Mexico ; 
United States Statute at large, 31st Con- 
gress, page 447 : 

And provided, fiirtJie.)-, That, WHEN ADMITTED 
AS A STATE, the said territory, or any portion of 
the same, shall be received into the Union, with or 
without slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe 
at the time ofihei'' adttiin/iion. 

But in 1854, I doubted the fact that 
any "popular sovereignty" was conferred 
upon the people of that territory by that 
clause put into their territorial bill in 1850, 
and I have been growing more and more 
doubtful upon that point ever since. It 
confers no power whatever upon the peo- 
[ile of the territory, it is confined, by its 
plain terms, to their action as a STATE. — 
Mr. Douglas claims that he has a precedent 
for his Kansas Nebraska Bill in the legisla- 
tion of 1850; but his claiming so does not 
mahe it so ; and I defy any man to place 
his finger upon a single line or word in all 
the legislation of 1850, that will in any 
manner sustain the pretensions of Mr, 
Douglas. 



13 



I have not time to look into the debates 
of 1850 — and if I had, our brother Wide 
Aa-ake, Mr. Ingalls, did it 30 well two 
weeks ago that I would desist. It was 
sought at that time to apply the " Wilmot 
proviso " to the territory then organized. 
Clay and Webster, and their compatriots, 
regarded it as unnecessary, and only calcu- 
lated to breed bad feelings, for the laws of 
Mexico had already, as early as 1829, 
abolished slavery in that territory ; and 
Clay and Webster well knew that after 
Mexico was annexed to the United States, 
all Mexican laws which were not contrary 
to the Constitution of the United States, 
nor repealed by some proper authority, 
would be just as much in force as they ev- 
er were. Should Illinois be subjugated 
and annexed to Canada, every law upon 
our Statute book, not contrary to the Brit- 
ish Constitution, would remain in force 
until repealed. And so it was with Mex- 
ico. She had abolished slavery. Let me 
read the law : 

The President of the United Mexican States, to the 
inhabitants of the Republic — 

Be it known : That in the year IS'29, being desirous 
of 6is;nalizing the anniversary of our Iniiependence 
by an act of national Justice and Beneficence, which 
may contribute to the strength and support of sucti 
inestimable welfare, as to secure more and more the 
public tranquility, and reinstate an unfortunate por- 
tion of our inhabitants in the sacred rights granted 
them by nature, and may be protected by the nation, 
under wise asd just laws, according to the provisioH 
in article 30 of the Oonstitutive act ; availing myself 
of the extraordinary facilities granted me. I have 
thought proper to decree : 

1. That slavery be exterminated in the republic. 

2. Consequently those are free, who, up to this day, 
have been looked upon as slaves. 

ti. Whenever the circumstances of the public treas- 
ury will allow it, the owners of slaves shall be ideni- 
nified, in the manner which the laws shall provide. 

Mexico, lath Sept. 1329, A. D. 

JOSE MARIA de BOCANEGRA. 

Was there not sufficient reason why the 
Wilmot Proviso should not be applied to 
the territory acquired of Mexico ? Slavery 
does not exist by the law of nature — nor 
has it any foundation whatever in common 
law — it can exist only by positive statute 
law — and in the territory acquired of Mex- 
ico, a law to establish it was not only lack- 
ing, but, by positive law, slavery had been 
actually abolished. 

But in looking over the legislation of 
1850, I find a clause in all the territorial 
bills then passed, simular to the one in the 
Territorial Bill of New Mexico, which I do 
not remember to have ever heard read by 
Senator Dougla.s, or any other Democrat, 
in support of " popular sovereignty ; " it 
reads as follows. U. S. laws, 31st Con- 
gress, page 449 : 



AH thf, laws passed by the Ugitilanve asHemhly 
end OoTe.rnor »haU be xubmttted to the Congreis of 
the Cnited Hates, and, ij DISAPPROVKD, nhali b» 
aVhh and of tiO EFFECT. 

So you see that Clay and Webster voted 
against applying the Wilmot Proviso to 
New Mexico, because slavery was already 
abolished th^re ; but for fear that the ter- 
ritorial legislature should undertake to in- 
troduce slavery, they specially provided, as 
our fathers were always careful to do, that 
all territorial laics should be submitted to 
Congress, and if " disapproved should be 
null and of ro effect." How much " pop- 
ular sovereignty " did that bill contain ? — 
To show you that territorial laws have 
been disapproved, and that too by our 
fathers, I read you from a law passed by 
Congress, as early as May 8, 1792 ; 1st U. 
S. Statute at large, page 286 : 

Sec. 6. And be iifitrther enacted. That the limita- 
tion act passed by the Governor and Judges of the 
said territory, the twenty-eighth day of December, 
one thousand seven hundred and eightyeiyht, be and 
hereby is disapproved. 

Our fathers were only exercising over 
the territories the guardian care conferred 
upon Congress by the Constitution — ^just 
as the Democratic administration of Thomas 
Jefferson exercised it in the removal of 
Govf-rnor St. Clair. 

I have now traced the legislation of our 
country from 1776 up to 1854, and I find 
it uniformly and always in favor of liberty 
— never for once departing from the policy 
inaugurated by the fathers. The claim 
set up by the followers of Mr. Douglas 
that theirs is the old time policy, is wholly 
without foundation in fact. The Kansas 
Nebraska Bill has no precedent in all the 
history of our Republic. The Democratic 
party in 1854 took a new shoot, not veering 
off sideways fiom the course laid down by 
the founders of the government, but wheel- 
ing squarely around and going straight 
backwards. Our fathers were marching 
straight forward, with " liberty " inscribed 
upon all their banners ! But the Democ- 
racy is marching directly backwards 
toward slavery and bondage. It is un- 
necessary to add that the Nebraska Bill 
and Dred Scott decision utterly overruled 
and overrides all of the previous legislation 
of our country. 

I now come to the second division, to the 
decisions of the supreme courts of various 
States, in cases where questions similar to 
those in the Dred Scott case have been de- 
cided, and where this legislation of our 
fathers has been, not declared to be un- 
constitutional, but sustmned and enforced. 



14 



I read first from a case decided by the su- 
preme court of the State of Massachusetts 
in 1836. The facts in this case were that a 
resident of New Orleans went to Massachu- 
setts and took with him a slave servant, in- 
tending soon to return to New Orleans. A 
writ of Habeas Corpus was brought, and 
the court held that the slave could not be 
taken back — his being brought into a free 
State by his master made him free. Com- 
monwealth vs. Aves, 18 Pickering, 219, the 
court, in considering the clause in the 
United States constitution for the rendition 
of fugitives from justice, say : 

The constitution and law manifestly refer to a slave 
escaping from a State where he oweafierviue or labor 
into another State or Territory. He is termed a fugi- 
tive from labor ; the proof to be made is, ihat he owed 
Bervice or labor, under the laws of the State or T«rri- 
tory /r»m which, he Jled. This language can, by no 
reasonable construction, be applied to the case of a 
slave who has not _fied from the State, but who has 
been brought into the State by his manter. 

It will be remembered that Dred Scott 
had not Jied from a State, but that he was 
brought by his master to the State of Illi- 
nois and held two yeais, and taken by his 
master to Ft. Snelling. Democrats tell 
you that Judge Taney did not decide that 
slaveholders could hold their slaves in Illi- 
nois. Well, if he did not decide quite that, 
he did decide that holding Dred Scott a 
slave in this State two years did not make 
him free. But the court on page 210 say : 

Without pursuing this inquiry further, it is sufficient 
for the purposes of the case before us, that by the Con- 
stitution adopted in 1780, slavery was abolished in 
Massachusetts, upon the ground that it is contrary to 
natural right and the plain principles of justice. The 
terms of the first article of the declaration of rights 
are plain and explicit. " All men are born free and 
equal, and have certain natural, essential and ina- 
lienable rights, which are, the right of enjoying and 
defending their lives and liberties, and that of acquir- 
ing, possessing and protecting property." It would be 
difficult to select words more precisely adapted to the 
abolition of ne^ro slavery. 

That is the only abolition of slavery, I 
think, that ever took place in Massachusetts. 
And the Constitution of Illinois is almost 
precisely similar to the Constitution of 
Massachusetts. It is a noticeable fact, too, 
that the Constitution of Massachusetts was 
adopted in 1780, and the Constitution of 
the United States was not framed until 
seven years afterwards, in 1787 ; so that by 
the plain law of Massachusetts negroes did 
have " rights which white men were bound 
to respect." Who can believe that it was 
intended that the Constitution of the United 
States would make chattel property of a 
class of people who were freemen in the 
commonwealth of Massachusetts? 

And I read from the case of Merry vs. Chex- 
Baider, by the supreme court of the slave 



State of Louisiana, in 1 830, reported in 20 
Martin's Louisiana Reports, page 699 : 

The plaintiff sues in this action to recover his free- 
dom, and from the evidence wn record, is clearly en- 
titled to it. He was born in the North Western Terri- 
tory, since the enactment by Congress, in 1787, of the 
ordinance for the government of that country, accor- 
ding to the sixth article of which, " there could be 
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude." This or- 
dinance fixed forever the character of the population 
in the region over which it extended, and takes away 
all foundation from the claim set up in this instance by 
the defendant. The act of cession by Virginia did 
no)t deprive Congress of the power to maks such a reg- 
ulation. The plaintiff accordingly is free. 

The Supreme Court of Louisiana did not 
doubt the authority of Congress to exclud»» 
slavery from the territory, and when a 
black man was suing in their courts, claim- 
ing his liberty under that*-act of Congress, 
just as Dred Scott did in Missouri, they en- 
forced the law, and let the slave go free. 

Let us see what the Supreme Court of 
Mississipi have said. I read from the case 
of Harvey vs. Decker and Hopkins, decided 
by the Supreme Court of Mississippi, at the 
June term, 1818, Walker's Mi.ss. R. 36 : 

The facts in this case are not controverted. The 
three negroes were slaves in Virginia ; in 1784, they 
Were taken by John Decker to the t eighborheod of 
Vincennes ; they remained there until July, 1816 ; the 
Ordinance of Congress was passed in 1787, and the 
Constitution of Indiana was adopted on the 29lh day 
of June, 1816. It is contended on the one side, that 
by the cession act of Virginia, these negroes are 
slaves ; and on the other, that by the Ordinance of 
1787, and the Constitution of Indiana they are free. 
The services of the negroes are claimed as a vested 
right. What is a vested right * Slavery is condemaed 
by reason and the laws of nature. It can only exist 
through municipal regulations, and in matters of 
doubt, the courts must lean infavnrem. mice et liber- 
tatis. [In favor ef life and liberty .] * * * 

The treaty of cession by Virginia to the United 
States, which guarantees to the inhabitants of the 
northwestern territory, their titles, rights and liber- 
ties, does not render void that article of the Ordinance 
of Congress of 1787, which prohibits slavery in that 
territory ; that slaves within the limits of the north- 
western territory becpiTaelfreemenby virtue of the O?'- 
dinance 0/1131, and can assert their claims to 
freedom in the courts of the State of Mississippi. 

Compare that decision with the Dred 
Scott case. The slave State of Mississippi 
leaning " in favor of life and liberty," and 
deciding that Congress could prohibit sla- 
very in the northwestern territory, and that 
the Supreme Court of Mississippi would 
enforce that act of Congress, and would 
set at liberty the three negroes then held 
in slavery in Mississippi, because they had 
once resided in the northwestern territory, 
f.-om which Congress had prohibited sla- 
very — the negroes being taken to the ter- 
ritory before the passage of the Ordinance 
of 1787, but held there after its passage. 

I now read from the case of the State of 
Indiana vs. Lasselle, decided by the Su- 
preme Court of Indiana in 1820, 1st Black- 
fords Ind. Reports, page 60 : 



15 



The qaestion is as to the legality of Lassell's claim 
to hold Polly as a slave. It is contended for Polly, 
that by the Ordinance of 1787. and the Constitution 
of Indiana, which was adopted in 1816, she is eatiiled 
to her freedom. In the eleventh article of our Con- 
gtitution, section 7. it is decided, that, " there shall be 
neither slavery nor unvoluntary servitude in this 
State, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." It 
is evident from this provision, that the framers of our 
Constitution intended a total and entire prohibition 
of slavery in this State ; and we can conceive of no 
words in which that intention could have been more 
clearly expressed. The judgment of the Circuit Court 
is reversed, and Polly discharged. 

I do not own a copy of ihe Missouri Re- 
ports, and do not know of a copy being 
owned in town ; but in 2d Gillraan's Illi- 
nois Reports, I find that Judge Scates, 
who delivered the opinion of the court in 
the case of Jarrot vs. Jarrot, quoted the 
prior decisions of the Supreme Court of 
Missouri, as follows : 

In the case of Wintiey vs. Whiteside, 1st Mo. Re- 
ports, page 472. it was held that the negro woman, 
who had been taken into the Illinois territory since 
the Ordinance of 1787 by ht- r owners, who resided 
there four years, thereby became free, and upon be- 
ing taken afterwards to the State of Missouri, was not 
remitted again to the State of slavery, and that C(m- 
gress under the Confederation had the power to pass 
th- Ordinance. 

In the case of John Merry vs. TifBn k Menard, 1st 
Mo. 725, the mother of the plaintiff had been held as 
a slave in Virginia and taken into the Illinois before 
the Ordinance of 1787, and held in slavery there before 
and after its passaije, and the plaintiff was born 
there after the Ordinance. It was held that he was 
free. 

These two cases were decided in the Su- 
preme Court of Missouri in the year 1827, 
before the " Blue Lodges " had been or- 
ganized all over that State, and the insane 
effort made on the part of the people of Mis- 
souri to force slaver}' upon the unwilling 
people of Kansas. They were made at a 
lime when there was no undue excitement 
or agitation upon the slavery question,and it 
may fairly be presumed that the Judges of 
the Supreme Court of Missouri gave these 
important questions their careful considera- 
tion before rendering their decisions. — 
These two decisions were made, too, upon 
the same principles, and precisely in ac- 
cordance with every decision rendered by 
any civilized tribunal upon the face of the 
globe, from the decision of Lord Mansfield, 
in the Somersett case, in 1772, up to the 
time of those decisions. And in these two 
cases we have precisely the same facts of 
the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott was taken 
into territory and for six years held as a 
slave, from which Congress had excluded 
slavery ; but Judge Taney says the Consti- 
tution carries slavery into the territory, and 
Congress could not exclude it, and that 
Dred Scott is still a slave. In the first case 
in the Supreme Court of Missouri, Winny 



vs. Whiteside, the negro woman was taken 
into the territory from which Congress had 
excluded slavery and held as a slave four 
years ; and the Supreme Court of Missouri 
in 1826 say. Congress had the right to ex- 
clude slavery, and therefore the negro wo- 
man is free. The two children of Dred 
Scott were born in territory from which 
Congress had excluded slavery; but Judge 
Taney says Congress had no right to ex- 
clude slavery, and dooms the children of 
Dred Scott to bondage forever. In the 
second case in the Supreme Court of Mis- 
souri, John Merry vs. Tiffin and Menard, 
John Merry, the plaintiff, was born in ter- 
ritory from which Congress had excluded 
slavery, and the Supreme Court of Missouri 
say, Congress had the right to exclude sla- 
very, and John Merry is therefore free. 

But let us see what the Supreme Court 
of our own State of Illinois have said. I 
read from thecase of Choisser vs. Hargrave, 
decided by the Supreme Court of Illinois, 
at December term, 1836, 1st Scam — 317- 
18 ; from the syllabus : 

The act of 18S7, of the territory of Indiana, in rela- 
tion to the indenturing and registering negroes and 
mnlattoes, is clearly in violation of the Ordinance of 
1787, and ii therefore void. , 

And from the opinion of the Court : 

This action, for assault and false imprisonment, was 
broncht by the defendant in error, Barney Hargrave, 
a colored man, against John Choisser, (who claimed 
the defendant in error as an indentured servant,) to 
try his right to freedom. By the Ordinance of Con- 
gress for the government of the territory northwest of 
the Ohio, passed in 1787, it is declared, " there shall be 
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said 
territory, otherwise than for the punishment of 
crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed." 

And after reviewing the indentured ser- 
vant act of the territory of Indiana, at 
some length, which was passed at a time 
when Illinois was part of that territory, the 
court says : 

This act of the Territorial Legislature, is clearly in 
violation of the Ordinance of 1787, and consequently 
void. 

So you see that the Supreme Court of 
this State were clearly of the opinion, and 
so decided, that Congress had authority to 
pass the Ordinance of 1787, and that no 
territorial laws in any way violating that 
Ordinance, was of any force, but v!&?,void. 

But I find another case decided by the 
Supreme Court of Illinois, at December 
term, 1845, Jarrot vs. Jarrot, 2d Gilman 1. 
I read from the syllabus : 

An actisn of assumpsit for services rendered may 
be maintained by a colored man, and thereby try the 
question of his right to freedom. 

The descendants of the slaves of the old French set- 
tlers, born since the adoption of the Ordinance of 
17S7, and before or since the Constitution of the State 



16 



of Illinois was adopted, cannot be held in slavery in 
this State. 

And from Judge Scates who delivered 
the opinion of the court : 

After so many, and such uniformity of judicial de- 
terminHtioBs upon the meaning, and the application 
of the Constitution and Ordinance to facts and cir- 
cumstances like these beiore the court, made in so 
henignaj't a spirit of humanity and justice, 1 cannot 
allow my mind to doubt of the plaintiff's " inherent 
and indefeasible rights," to become " equally free and 
independent " with other citizens, " and of enjoying 
and defending life and liberty and of acquiring, pos- 
sessing and protecting property and reputation, and 
of pursuing " his " own happiness," except so far as 
he may, by the Constitution and laws, be restricted or 
denied the right of suffrage, Jtc. All philanthrojiists 
unite in deprecating the evils of slavery, and it affords 
me sincere pleasure, when mv duty undor the Con- 
stitution and laws requires me to break the fetters of 
the slave, and declare the captive free. 

The law presumes every man to tis icnocent of 
crime. The benefit of every doubt is given to ihe ac- 
cused, and the presumption allowed to ])reVHil. Should 
less force and elTicacy be allowed the presumption of 
treedom in rebutting such doubls, as contemporaneous 
constructions are admissible to remove? The con- 
viction of a crime may doom the accused to tempor- 
ary loss of liberty ; the solution of a doubt against 
the plaintiff will doom him to slavery, to bondage for 
life. If the scales of justice are equally balanced, the 
law inclines to mercy. If 1 entertained a doubt I 
should be compelled to decide in favor of iibei ty. But 
as the Courts of Massachusetts and Mississippi de- 
clared, so it appears to my mind too r^lainto admit of 
construction, " there shall be neitiier slavery nor in- 
voluntary servitude in the said Territory," as de- 
clared by the Ordinance. 

This Court decided at the December l»>rm 1840, in 
the case oi Kinney vs. Cuoi-,2 Scara. 233, and again 
at the July term 1841, in the case of Bailey ts. Crom- 
icell, &do. 71, " that the presumption of law in this 
State was, that every person was free, without regard 
to color. 

I have now quoted sufBcientlj' from the 
decisions of the Supreme Courts of the var- 
ious States to show you clearly the current 
of those decisions. Indiana, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Missouri and Illinois, have in- 
variably sustained the legislation of the 
fathers. I do not believe that one single 
decision can be produced, made by the Su- 
preme Court of any State in the Union, 
up to the Dred Scott case, where a con- 
trary opinion has ever been held. 

I now pass to the third and la? t division 
• — to an examination of the decisions of the 
supreme court of the United States, when 
Marshall and Story were upon the bench. 
I here remark that there is not a respecta- 
ble court in the civilized world, in which 
the decisions of those judges would not be 
taken as binding authority. Should I read 
in the English Parliament, the highest 
court of appeal in England, from an 
opinion delivered by Judge Stuky, the a'l- 
thoritjT would be considered of as great 
weight, and entitled to as much respect, as 
any authorityl might read from Lord Bacon 
or Sir William Blackstone. By their ac- 
knowledged purity and honesty, their ripe 



and schollarlyeradition,they have so inter- 
woven their names in the jurisprudence of 
the age in which they lived, as to render 
them immortal. Tell me that Taney can 
override Marshall and Stouv, and that his 
decision must be & ^finality ! As well tell me 
that the latest lie must be followed instead 
of the earlier truth — that Wrong will tri- 
umph over Right. 

1 read first from the case of the Ameri- 
can Insurance Company, et al. vs. Canter, 
1st Peters United States Supreme Court 
Reports, page 542, decided at January 
term 1828, when John Marshall was Chitf 
Justice, and the associate judges were 
Burshrod Washington, William Johnson, 
(iabriel Duval, Joseph Story, Smith Thomp- 
son, and Robert Trimble. This case was 
not decided by a divided court, like the 
Dred Scott case, but the associate judges 
all agreed with Chief Justice Marshall, 
who, in delivering the opinion of the Court 
says : 

They do not, however, participate in political pow- 
er ; they do not share the government until Florida 
shall become a State. In tVie meantime, Florida con- 
tinues to he a territory of the United States ; governed 
hij virtue of that clause in ihe Constitution, which 
empowers Congress " to make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the territory, or other proper- 
ty belonging to the United States." 

Perhpps the power of governing a territory belong- 
ing to thf United States, which has not by becoming a 
8tate acquired the means of self-government, may re- 
sult necessarily from the facts, that it is not within 
the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is 
within the jurisdiction of the United States. The 
right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of 
the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the 
source whence the power is derived iAe possession of 
it is unquestioned. 

What do you Douglasites think of this 
decision made by the Supreme Court of the 
United States ip 1828, by an unanimous 
Court? Do you think that Judges Marshall 
and Story were not capable of deeiding a 
question of Constitutional law ? We Repub- 
licans say that Congress has the right to 
exclude Slavery from the territories; and 
to sustain us in that position we point you 
to the legislation of the country for seven- 
ty-fight years; to the North West ordinance 
of 1787, by which our fathers excluded 
Slavery from the territory of our own State 
of Illinois, and kept it for us, their children, 
an inheritance of freedom ; to the com- 
promise of 1820, which excluded Slavery 
from the young State of Iowa and the terri- 
tory West,including Kansas and Nebraska, 
that the "ruthless hand" of Judge Doug- 
las "impared"; and to the Supreme Court 
of the United States in the days of its pres- 
tine glory. You declaim for popular sov- 
ereignty, and to what can you point? You 



17 



cannot place your finger upon a single law 
in all the Statute books of America, up to 
July 21st 1854, that will maintain you in 
year position. Among all of the decisions 
that have ever been rendered by the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, you can 
not find a single decision by which you 
are sustained. Even the Dred Scott case, 
to which you are so firmly bound by the 
Wickliffe resolution, "crushes out" all idea 
of popular sovereignty, and places tlie right 
to hold slaves above and beyond every other 
right of the people of America. How much 
longer will you cling to that hollow mock- 
ery ? 

I now read from the case of LeGrand vs. 
Darnall, decided in 1829, 2d Peters, 664. 
This case came up from Maryland, on the 
following facts : "Bennett Darnall, of Ann 
Arundel County, State of Maryland, by 
his will, dated August 4th 1810, devised to 
hu son, Nicholas Darnall, the defendant in 
this case,certain lands lying in the county 
and State aforesaid. The mother of the 
said Nicholas was the Slave of the testator, 
and Nicholas was born a Slave to his fath- 
er.''' You all know a slave follows the con- 
dition of the mother. 

LeGrand the White man, purchased of 
Nicholas Darnall, the negro, the land de- 
vised to him for which he gave the negro 
his notes. When the notes became due 
LeGrand would not pay, and the negro sued 
him. LeGrand obtained an injunction, on 
the ground that the Negro could not con- 
vey real estate, (had "no rights which 
a white man was bound to respect,") 
but the courts of Maryland so far 
favored the negro, that the injunction 
was dissolved. LeGrand the White man, 
appealed to the Supreme Court of the 
United States ; and that Court constituted 
precisely as it was one year before, in the 
case I have just read you, with John Mar- 
shall, and Joseph Story on the bench, by 
an unanimous opinion, not a single judge 
dissenting, in rendering the opinion of the 
Court, use the following language; 

The time ai the fre&dom of the appellee commenced 
immediately after the death of the testator, when, ac- 
cordinK to the evidence, he was about eleven years 
old. Four respectable witnesses of the neighborhood 
were examined. They all agree in their testimony 
that Nicholas was well grown, healthy, and inteligent, 
and of geod bodily and mental capacity ; that he and 
his brother Henry could readily have feund employ- 
ment, either as bouse servant boys, or on a farm, or 
as apprintices ; and that they were able to work and 
and gain a livelihood. The testator devised to each 
of them real and personal estate to a considerable 
amount. They had guardians appointed, were well 
educated, and Nicholas is now living In atHnence Ex- 
perience has proved that be was able to work, and 



gain a sufficient maintainancc ar.d livelihood. No 
donbt has even been entertained as to the fact by any 
who know him. OF COURSE, hewaa capable in lata 
to (tell and dispone of the wholt or part of his eataU), 
and to execute the iiecesnary instruments of writitig 
to convey a /sufficient title to the purchaser. 

The Court ol appeaU of Maryland , in the ciige ot 
Hale vs MuUin, decided, that a dici.se of prrypertj, 
real or personal by a master to his slave, entitles the 
slave to hia/reedoTn, hy iieceHnary iinplication,. This 
Court entertains the name opinion. 

Here we find the Supreme Court of the 
United States deciding that a negro has 
rights which a white man is bound to re- 
spect — that when a wkite man buys prop- 
erty of a negro in Maryland, and gives his 
note, he must pay the note. More than 
that, that the negro was entitled to hisjree- 
dorn liy necessary iinplication, because his 
master had devised to him real estate ; and 
that he could hold and sell real estate, and 
make a sufficient title therefor, and was, 
withal "inteligenc and living in atfluence." 
At that early day the Supreme Court of 
the United States was willing to lend its 
aid to assist a negro to collect a note that 
was due to him by a white man. 

There is one thing in this case of Le- 
Grand vs. Darnall, that to me is a little 
amusing. At that time, in 182!t, Roger 
B. Taney was not a judge of the Supreme 
Court of the Unittd States, but he was 
practicing, as an attorney at law, in Mary- 
land , and when this white man LeGrand, 
was trying to cheat the negro Darnall, out 
of the pay for his farm, Chief Justice Roger 
B. Taney, was the attorney of Mr LeGrand. 
(Laughter.) It is a fact — the book says, 
"Mr Taney, for the appellant." So you see 
that Mr. Taney himself, at that time, en- 
tertained the opinion that a negro "could be 
sued" in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, for he sued him — Chief Justice 
Taney sued a "nigger". (Laughter) our 
fathers went to war upon the principle of 
"no taxation without representation." Thac 
maxim, however, has some exceptions. I 
do not know of any exception to the legal 
rule that the "liability" of any person to be 
sued in a court, carries with it the corres- 
ponding "privilege" of that person to sue in 
that court. But Taney would reverse all 
that. When he would sue a negro, he 
would have the court open to him for that 
purpose; but when a negro would bring a 
suit, and that, too, to try the most import- 
ant question that ever judicial tribunal, 
passed upon — the question of Dred Scott's 
liberty and the liberty of his children, Mr. 
Taney meets him at the very threshold with 
the declaration, "you cant bring a suit — 
negroes have no rights which white men 
are bound to respect." The United States 



!8 



Supreme Court thought differently in 1829, 
and in this case Mr. Roger B, Taney was 
**cleancd out" by the negro. (Laughter and 
applause.) 

The next case I read is Groves et al vs 
Slaughter, 15 Peters 449, decided by the 
Supreme Court in 1841. This case was upon 
the construction of Miss, constitution adopt- 
ed in 1732, by which the introduction of 
.slaves into that State for sale or merchan- 
dise was prohibited after May 1st 1833. 
Notwithstanding the prohibition, Slaughter 
took slaves to Mississippi after that, and 
sold them, taking notes for them, and this 
i? a suit on the collection of the notes. — 
Hknrv Clay, hs the attorney of Slaughter, 
made an argument in this case, from which 
I read the following paragraph : 

In considering this question, it is necessary to look 
lit the situation of the slaves *n Mississippi, carried 
into the State after May, 1833, for sale or merchan- 
dise. Are they free? If they were free, it would be 
some consolation. But there is no freedom for those 
persons in Mississippi ; and those who purchased them, 
and seek now to escape from paying for them, and 
against moral rectitude insist on their ownership, ac- 
fjuired by a violation of the Constitution of Mississippi, 
it would be gratifying ts those who love freedom, if 
the negroes were free. And who does not love free- 
dom ? 

Such is the language used by Henry 
Cl \y in the argument of a law case. Who 
shall say that he did not love freedom Y — 
f read from the opinion of the Court: 

By the laws of certain States, slaves are treated as 
property; and the Constitution of Mississi jpi prohib- 
!t« their being brought into that State by citizens of 
other States, for sale, or as merchandise. Merchan- 
Oise is a comprehensive term, and may include every 
article of traffic, whether foreign or domestic, which 
is properly embraced by a commercial regulation. 
But if slaves are considered in f<07ne of the t^tates as 
Merchandise, that cannot divest them of the leading 
and controling qunlity of PERSONS hy which they 
are dexiff noted in the ConMitv.tion. The character 
of property is given them by the local law. This 
law is respected, and all rights under it are protectei 
*>y the federal authorities ; btit the Conntitution acts 
upon slaven as PERSONS and JfO T as property. 

The power over slavery belongs to the STATES 
respectively. It is local in its character, and in its 
effects. 

And Roger B. Taney, who at that time 
was on the bench, in delivering a seperate 
opinion in this case, on page 508, says : 

In my judgement, the power over this subject is 
EXCLUSIVELY with the several States. 

Even judge Taney did not at that time 
believe that the Constitution carried Slavery 
anywhere — he thought the power over the 
subject was '■'' excluidrely 'with iJie several 
States.^'' Slavery being a matter for the 
States to regulate, it can only exist by a 
State law. State laws can have no force 
outside of the State which make them. If 
the State of Maryland by a law makes lot- 
teries legal in that State, whoever would 
have a lottery and be protected by that law, 
must stay in the State of Maryland — he 



cariHot go to any other State, or io any ter- 
ritory, or anywhere out of Maryland with 
his lottery. If the State of Virginia shall 
by a law, aay that in that State negroes 
may be held in slavery, he who would hold 
a slave, and be protected by that law, must 
stay in the State of Virginia — he cannot go 
into any other state, or into a territory, or 
anywhere out of Virginia. The State law 
of Virginia, by which he holds his Slave, 
cannot be extended beyond the limits of 
that state. 

I have one more case to read — 16th Pe- 
ters, 538 — Prigg vs. The Commonwealth 
ol Pennsylvania. Judge Story, who deliv- 
ered the opinion of the Court, says : 

By the general law of nations, no nation is bound 
to recognise the state of slavery, as to foreign slav es 
found within its territorial dominions, when it is in op- 
position to its own policy and institutions, in favor of 
'.he. subjects of other nations where slavery is recog- 
nised, If it does it, it is as a matter of courtesy, and 
not as a matter of international right. The state of 
slavery is deemed to be a MERE MUNICIPIAL REG- 
ULATION, founded upon and limited to the range of 
the territorial laws. This was fully recognised in Som- 
erseit's case, Lofft's Rep. 1 ; which was decided before 
the American revolution. 

Having read to you so many decisions of 
both the supreme courts of different states, 
and of the supreme court of the United 
States, some of them rendered soon after 
the adoption of the Constitution, and 
various acts of Congress, all consistent with 
one another, and all of them uniformly in 
favor of liberty, let me ask any Democrat 
here, " What do you candidly think about 
this record? Were the fathers all wron^? 
Were none of them capable of putting a 
proper construction upon the Constitution 
of the United States — they who themselves 
had made it ? And since our fathers have 
so thought and acted for seventy-eight 
years, had we not better let their construc- 
tion of the Constitution stand, than to turn 
and twist it into favoring slavery ? Let me 
read you what Judge Stort says in this 
same case, page 621 : 

Under such circumstances, if the question were one 
of doubtful construction, such long acquiescense in it, 
such cotemporaneous expositions it it, and such eav 
tensive and uniform recognition of its validity, 
would in eur judgment entitle the question to be con- 
sidered at rest ; unless Indeed the interpretation of 
the Constitution is to be delivered over to intermina- 
ble doubt throughout the whole progress of legislation 
and ef national operation. Congress, the Executive, 
and the Judiciary, have, upon various occasions acted 
upon this, as a sound and reasonable doctrine. 

I am now done reading authorities. I 
know, that in speaking before a popular au- 
dience, it is very annoying and disagreea- 
ble for a speaker to be compelled to inter- 
rupt the flow of his discourse by dull and 
proFy readings ; and more especially so, 
when his readings are drawn from dry stat- 



ij) 



utes and legaJ decisions , ancl I fear that I 
have already presumed too much upon your 
indulgence and wearied you. I have en- 
deavored, in each instance, to read just as 
little as I could, and convey the meaning I 
desired. I apprehend that what I have 
read to you has a direct bearing upon the 
issues of this political campaign. And now 
that it is done, lam glad of it ; for, perhaps 
no one else could have been found, willing, 
at the risk of being thought dull and prosy, 
to have gone searching around among the 
law books, and dished up to you what I have 
been dishing up. 1 have shown to you by 
the Nebraska Bill, Dred Scott decision, and 
Democratic platforms, that both wings of 
the Democratic party are pledged to a sys- 
tem of slavery e.\tension, which has already 
judicially covered the vast territorial do- 
main of this Republic with the black pall 
of slavery, and when carried out to its log- 
ical conclusions, to that extent to which the 
Democratic party, are pledged to carry 
it, will spread the terrible curse of human 
bondage, over every foot of soil, both State 
and terrritorial, over which the Hag of our 
common country waves ; for I defy any man 
upon the plain principles of constitutional 
construction, upon the principles of com- 
mon sense, of reason, and of logic, to begin 
by admitting the justice and binding force 
of the Dred Scott decision — that slavery is 
recognized by the Constitution, and that 
the Constitution acts upon that unfortunate 
class of God's children as pro'perty merely^ 
and not as persons, and then demonstrate 
the authority of any State in this Union 
to set aside and abrogate that Constitution, 
and demonstrate by what authority the 
States of New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Massachusetts, have purged themselves of 
that relic of barbarism. It cannot be done. 
It is only by adopting the old time honored 
construction that our fathers gave it, that 
the Constitution acts upon the negro race 
(IS persoi^s^ leaving the question of slavery 
to be determined by the State laws — hold- 
ing that nothing can be permitted to sup- 
port slavery but positive State law — that 
any State has a right to abolish it. I have 
shown you, too, I trust, that the supreme 
court, and both wings of the Democratic 
party, in adopting the new dogma that the 
Constitution, perse, carries slavery into the 
territories, they have been compelled wholly 
to cut loose from the policy of the fathers. 
I now put the question fairly to any 
Democrat here, which do love best, freedom 
or slavery ? Which do yoa prefer should 
be the ruling idea of our nation ? Which 



construction do you wish should be placed 
upon the Constitution of our country, that 
which our fathers have given it for seventy 
eight years in favor of freedom, or that 
which the slave oligarchy of the south, 
when they had obtained a ruling majority 
of your party, gave it, in favor of slavery ? 
Which V If you love liberty, if your hearts 
are throbbing with a genuine love of free- 
dom, come, join the RcpubHcan ranks, and 
help us to swell liberty's acclaim — come, 
you shall be welcome here, and you sha:l 
be fortified in your position by the history 
of this Republic, in an unbroken line, from 
1776 up to 1854. (Applause.) ^ 

Sometimes Democrats say to me : "I ara 
just as much opposed to the Dred Scott 
Decision as you are — but the Court has 
made the decision, and I must now abide 
by it." Why did not Judge Taney abide 
by the decisions of John Marshall and 
Joseph Story ? If he could overrule their 
decisions, sustained as they are by every 
decision ever made by any court of a civ- 
ilized people; — by all the history of this Re- 
pubHc up to 1854 — founded in the immu- 
table principles of truth, and " leaning in 
favor of life and liberty," how happens it 
that whatever Taney may ^ay, must stand 
as " eternal as the rock-ribbed hills," even 
when Taney's decision has not a single 
precedent in all the jurisprudence of the 
world, and is falsified by every fact of his- 
tory ? Do you not see where a blind 
adhesion to anything the court may say 
will lead you ? Suppose Taney should de- 
cide that all laboring white men should be 
sold into slavery. Would you " abide " by 
that decision too ? Such a decission would 
have just as much foundation in truth as 
the Dred Scott decision has. Decisions 
were at one time rendered by the infamous 
court of Star Chamber, m England, and the 
blood of the innocent Lord Stafibrd was 
shed undei a judicial decision. " The King 
can do no wrong " is a maxim of tyranny, 
but what is the difference between it and 
" the court can do no wrong? " You point 
me to one decision, and say, " here, abide 
by this." I point you to an unbroken line 
of decisions, all one way, during the whole 
history of our Republic, rendered by Mar- 
shall and Story, and say, "this ie the 
law, T will abide by these." 

It may be uniiccessary before this au- 
dience for me to say, that in this contest 1 
am unalterably attached to the principles 
of liberty and unalterably opposed to sla- 
very ; and ranging myself, not only with 
the fathers of this F.epubUc, bat with the 



20 



great and good of all time, I am ready to 
cry out against human bondage in any and 
• n every form. I hate slavery, and lean 
adept the language of George Washington, 
the father of his country, and say, " that 
there is not a man living who wishes more 
sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted 
for the abolition of it-," and with John 
iiandolph, who said in Congress, in the ear- 
lier and better days of this republic, " Sir, 
i envy neither the heart nor the head of 
that man from the north, who rises here to 
defend slavery from principle," and I be- 
lieve with James Mod ""oe, and can adopt 
i^i* language and say, " we have found that 
this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of 
this Union, and been prejudicial to all of 
the States in which it has existed ; " and 
with George W. Summers, of Virginia, 
" that the evils of slavery cannot be enu 
merated ; " and with Judge Gaston, of 
North Carolina, *' that slavery impairs our 
strength as a community, and poisons our 
rroralsat the fountain head;" and with 
IjUther Martin, an other Virginian of the 
oiden time, that " slavery is inconsistent 
with the genius of Republicanism — it les- 
sens the sense of the equal rights of man- 
Kind, and habituates us to tyranny and op- 
pression;" and with Lord Mansfield, that 
" slavery is so odious that nothing can sup- 
port it but positive law •, " and with the 
r hilosopher Plato, " slavery is a system of 
the most complete injustice;" and with 
Socrates, that " slavery is a system of out- 
rage and robbery;"and with LordBrougham, 
" while men despise fraud, and loathe 
rapine and blood, they will reject, with in- 
dignation, the wild and guilty phantasy 
that man can hold property in man ; " and 
with Burke, the great English Statesman, 
that " slavery is a state so improper, so de- 
grading, so ruinous to the feelings and 
capacities of human nature, that it ought 
not to be sutTered to exist ; " and with Dr. 
Johnson, that " no man is by nature the 
property of another ; " and with Baron 
Von Humboldt, " that slavery is a system 
which is not only opposed to all of the 
principles of morality, but, as it appears to 
cne is pregnant with appalling and inevi- 
table danger to the Republic ; " and I be- 
Heve with that eminent writer Locke, " ev- 
ery man has a property in his own person ; 
this nobody has a right to but himself ; " 
and with John Jay, that eminent Judge, of 
the purest patriotism and deepest erudi- 
tion, one of the fathers of our Republic, 
" slavery ought not to be introduced or 
permitted in any of the new States; " and 



with John Quincy Adams, the " old man 
eloquent," whose language uttered long ago 
has a special significance when we remem - 
ber that slav'ery is now defended by the 
Southern wing of the Democracy on bible 
ground, he said "it perverts human rea- 
son, and induces men endowed with logical 
powers to maintain that slavery is sanc- 
tioned by the christian religion ; " and with 
Alexander Hamilton, "natural liberty is 
the gift of the beneficent Creator of the 
whole human race ; " and with Benj. 
Franklin, " slavery is an atrocious abase- 
ment of human nature ; " and with Owen 
Lovejoy in his late speech, "if you fuse to- 
gether polygamy, and everything that is 
bad, the resultant amalgam is slavery ; " and 
with Beattie, " that slavery is detrimental 
to virtue and industry ; " I believe, too, 
with Daniel Webster, and in his language 
say, " I never would consent, and never 
have consented, that there should be one 
foot of slave territory beyond what the old 
thirteen States had at the formation of the 
Union, never, never ; " (applause,) and I 
believe, too, with Henry Clay, and mark 
it, you old line Whigs, you who have fol- 
lowed the leadership of the gallant Harry 
of the west ; you, who in 1844, with Clay 
and Frelinghusysen for your standard 
bearers, here in Illinois, made a most glo- 
rious fight against the Democracy then lead 
by Stephen A. Douglas, and suffered de- 
feat with Clay ; who heard the vitupera- 
tion and slanders then heaped upon the 
head of your chosen and beloved leader, 
by this same man Douglas, who is now 
perambulating New England, shedding 
crocodile tears over the grave of the sage 
of Ashland, and singing disgusting and ful- 
some peans to his memory; Clay, who 
never wrote a letter declaring he would ac- 
cept the nomination of his party only upon 
certain conditions, and then when the Con- 
vention had met, telegraphing that he 
would accept the nomination even with the 
odious Wickliffe Resolution that his own 
party organs dare not publish ; who never 
was disgraced by his party, by being dis- 
placed from the chairmanship of a commit- 
tee that he had held for years, and who, if 
he had been, would never have went cring- 
ing back into the caucuses of a party that 
had thus disgraced him — your Clay never 
did any of these mean things, but in the 
proud consciousness of his manhood de- 
clared he would "rather be right than be 
President." (Applause.) Could you have 
seen Henry Clay in his old age, full of hon- 
ors as he was, coming out of his retirement 



21 



at Ashland and making a pilgrimage to 
Washington in 1850, to cast the oil of tem- 
perate debate upon the turbulent agitation 
there— the great Pacificator; — could you 
have watched his course through all that 
struggle — his action on the celebrated com- 
mittee of thirteen ; — could you have been 
there, in Washington, and saw him as he 
rose in Congress, lifting his tall form to its 
full height — could you have heard the 
thrilling, tremulous earnestness of that old 
man's silvery voice, as he uttered those 
truthful burning words, which, with Ben- 
ton, I can say, " I could have wished that I 
had spoken those same words. I speak 
them now, telling you they were his, and 
adopting them as my own," — he said " so 
long as God allows the vital current to flow 
through my veins, I will never, never, nev- 
er, by word or thought, by mind or will, 
aid in submitting one rood of free territory 
to the curse of human bondage ; " (ap- 
plause,) here will I found my faith, and if 
these great and good men vere right, then 
am I right ; here will I build my house, 
without fear that when the wind and the 
rains shall beat upon that house it will fall, 
for it will be founded upon the " Rock of 
Ages " — firmly rooted in the principles of 
immutable and eternal truth. 

My lespects are due to the ladies here, 
who have enlivened this occasion with their 
presence, and who have so heroically re- 
mained, listening to my dry readings from 
these musty law books. I always had a 
sort of "liking " for the ladies, and I can- 
not shake it off even in political matters ; 
and I should like on this occasion to say 
something entertaining to you, but I dare 
not undertake it, I am always so awk- 
ward and bungling whenever I undertake 
to be complimentary and gallant. I will, 
however, venture to remark that the ladies 
have made this meeting a much pleasanter 
one than it would have been without their 
presence ; and venture a hope that during 
this canvass our meetings may many times 
be enlivened and cheered by the light of 
their beautiful eyes, and many a blushing 
young orator made happy by the clapping 
of their delicate hands, and why not — why 
should woman not be interested in the 
questions we discuss ? They are deep and 
broad questions, as deep and broad as 
man's destiny is — and when we speak of 
man's destiny, do we not always speak of 
it in that broad, biblical sense, that " em- 
braces" woman ? Where is the woman 
that would be willing to admit that her 
sex is excluded from that glorious old 



declaration that "all men are created equal" 
&c., and that because she is a woman, she 
should be excluded from those "self evi- 
dent " privileges of " life, liberty," and es- 
pecially the " pursuit of happiness." — 
(Laughter.) A few days ago I was talking 
to a Democrat about this Dred Scott decis- 
sion, and putting on considerable dignity, 
he came at me with this poser : " Why, 
you might as well claim that woman are 
citizens, as to claim that negroes may be." 
I coi'fess that I was somewhat surprised to 
find even the " progressive democratic par- 
ty " getting along quite so fast, and I sup- 
pose that the next decision that we shall get 
from the Supreme Court will be that " wo- 
man have no rights which white men are 
bound to respect." (Laughter.) Ladies, 
I have pleasure this evening in assuring 
you that the Constitution of our country 
regards you as " persons," and that you 
are citizens, known to our laws, and have 
rights which everybody are "bound to le- 
spect." The courts of our country are yet 
open to you, to bring suits, if you will, for 
instance, for breach of promise, (laughter,) 
but I hope none of you will be suing 
me for that, (renewed laughter,) howev- 
er, if any of you want to sue any body 
else, I will gladly beat your service, as at- 
torney, (laughter) and if I should not be 
successful, and the " gay deceiver" should 
happen to reside in another State, I will 
take your case up to the Supreme Court, 
and see what sort of a decision old Taney 
would make. (Laughter and applause.) 

My brother Wide Awakes, a word to you. 
To older men I can only address myself in 
the inexorable logic of the facts of history, 
but to you, young men, of whom I am, and 
with whom I am in sympathy, may I not 
offer some words of encouragement. The 
battle that we are waging turns upon no 
party measures ; we are battling upon 
PRINCIPLE — upon the fundemental prin- 
ciples of free government itself. And upon 
the young men of this nation, the burden 
of the struggle must fall ; as it did in the 
revolutionary times. Jefferson was a young 
man when he drafted the Declaration of 
American Independence — Washington was 
a young man when he was first Command- 
er-in-Cbief of the Continental army. — 
Young men, let us be earnest and faithful, 
our lamps " trimed and burning " for 
"eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." 
When we have placed "Honest Old Abe" 
in the Presidential chair, as we will, our 
task will not be done ; for which time shall 
last there must be advocates for Truth, 



22 



there must be laborers for the eternal prin- 
ciples of Right and Jdstick. When the 
years shall have rolled away — when the 
last Wide Awake of our band, after a ripe 
old age, and full of honors, as I trust, stark 
and cold in death, is borne upon his bier to 
" God's Acre ; " after the clods of the val- 
ley have rattled upon his cofBn ; after the 
defacing hand of Time has removed every 
memorial of his last resting place, and the 
white daisies are blossoming, and the green 
sward growing smooth above his grave, the 
fundamental principles for which we are 
contending in this canvass, will be just as 
truthful, and just as vital as now. Let us 
" hang our banners on the outward walls " 
— " gird on our armor," and " press for- 
ward the column " — " enlisted for life ! " — 
In such a contest, a contest upon principle, 
it matters very little who our leaders aie ; 
and yet, young men, we have been highly 
complimented in the choosing of Abraham 
Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin as our 
standard bearers — free labor and individual 
effort have been honored. It was one of the 
features of the law, in the ancient Repub- 
lic of Athens, that all children born were 
the children of the Republic, and at a very 
young and tender age they were taken out 
of the care of their natural parents, and 
placed under the control of the government 
at large. Their education and training was 
wholly attended to by the government, and 
at its expense. Thus it happened that 
there was no aristocracy in Athens. All 
children born set out in the race of life up- 
on an equal footing. Lycurgus, the old 
Athenian law giver, never caught from the 
inspirations of the Delphic Oracle a more 
beautiful thought. If, in this Republican 
form of government of ours there be one 
feature that shines with a brighter lustre 
than another, it is that feature of equality 
which allows the humblest boy of all our 
land to attain to the highest and most hon- 
ored position. Lincoln and Hamlin both 
started poor ; their biographers will write 
of either of them, as is written of the most 
honored names in history, " he was born ef 
humble, but honest parents." Lincoln was 
a farmers son, a backwoodsman, a rail-maul- 
er, a flat-boatman, a school teacher, a sur- 
veyor, and a lawyer. In Lincoln and Ham- 
lin two more bright stars are added to the 
glorious galaxy of self-made men. George 
Washington was a surveyor ; Daniel Web- 
ster a farmers son, and a coppying clerk in 
a county clerks office ; Henry Clay — gal- 
lant Henry of the West, wil! alwaye be 



best known as the *'Mili boy of the Slash- 
es; " when the "Wagon Boy " is name<i, 
the venerable and Honorable Thomas Cor- 
win, of Ohio, is always recognized ; Ben 
Franklin was a tallow chandlers son, and a 
" typo ; " Patrick Henry and Andrew Jack- 
son fought their own way upward — so has 
Lincoln. On the scroll of fame his name 
will blaze for-ever bright by the side of 
theirs. Boys, let us sustain Abraham Lin- 
coln, " lock-step, shoulder to shoulder, and 
breast to back." [Applause.] Already we 
hear coming up from the South an ac- 
knowledgment of his success, mingled with 
mutterings and threats of disunion. Let 
us not be frightened by it Let us teach 
these men, that we have determined, in 
dead-earnest, to wrest this government from 
the hands of corrupt conspirators, and place 
an *' honest man " in the presidential chair, 
who will administer this government on the 
principles of our fathers. Let the word go 
back to them, shouted by the stentorian 
voices of millions of freemen, for it is time 
that they should know it, that when, in a 
constitutional and proper way, we have 
elected Abraham Lincoln, he shall be in- 
augurated. I do not believe that there will 
be any trouble — I do most sincerely hope 
that there may not be. I do not believe 
that there are many people in the south 
willing to accept of the leadership of a Keitt, 
and in the event of the election of Lincoln 
make an effort to " rend this Union from 
turret to foundation Stone." I do not be- 
lieve that many would be found there wil- 
ling to accept of the advice of Governor 
Wise, and in the event of the election of a 
Republican president, '* march up to the 
capital, take possession of the archives of 
government, and prevent his inauguration." 
I do not believe that the South have already 
"sent agents to Europe to make an argu- 
ment for a Southern Confederacy." I do not 
believe that William L. Yancey has already 
" organized a secret order m the South, 
that in the event of the election of Lincoln 
are sworn to dissolve this Union." I do 
believe that all these are only put forward 
as electioneering schemes to frighten us oat 
of our votes. But I tell you, Wide Awakes, 
if they undertake to play a game of that 
kind, if they will not listen to the teachings 
of the fathers, nor the voice of reason, we 
must change our lamps for Sharpe's rifiles, 
and to what we have already said, we must 
add the eloquent language of gunpowder, 
and the inexorable convincing argument of 
lead. [Applaus*.] 



JE3 lAT 



2^» 



Then what is necessary for the nation- 
alization of slavery ? It is simply the next 
Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the 
Supreme Court to decide that no State un- 
der the Constitution can exclude it, just as 
they have already decided that under the 
Constitution neither Congress nor the Ter- 
ritorial Legislature can do it. When that 
is decided and acquiesced in, the whole 
thing is done. This being true, and this 
being the way, as I think, that slavery is 
10 be made national, let us consider what 
Judge Douglas is doing every day to that 
end. In the first place, let us see what in- 
fluence he is exerting on public sentiment. 
In this and like c immunities, public senti- 
ment is everything. With public senti- 
ment, nothing can fail ; without it nothing 
can succeed. Consequently he who moulds 
public sentiment, goes deeper than he who 
enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. — 
He makes statutes and decisions possible 
or impossible to be executed. This must 
be borne in mind, as also the additional 
fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast 
influence, so great that it is enough for 
many men to profess to believe anything, 
when they once find out that Judge Doug- 
las professes to believe it. Consider also 
the attitude he occupies at the head of a 
large party — a party which he claims has a 
majority of all the voters in the country. — 
This man sticks to a decision which forbids 
the people of a Territory from excluding 
slavery, and he does so not because he says 
it is right in itself — he does not give any 
opinion on that — but because it has been 
decided by the court, and being decided by 
the court, he is, and you are bound to take 
it in your political action as law — not that 
he judges at all of its merits, but because a 
decision of the court is to him a " TTitis 
saith the Lord.^' He places it on that 
ground alone, and you will bear in mind 
that, thus committing himself unreservedly 
to this decision, commits him to the next 
owe just as firmly as to this. He did not 
commit himself on account of the merit or 
demerit of the decision, but it is a TTius 
saith the Loi'd,. The next decision, as much 
as this, will be a Thiis saith the Lord. — 
There is nothing that can divert or turn 
him away from this decision. It is nothing 
that I point out to him that his great pro- 
totype, Gen. Jackson, did not believe in 
the binding force of decisions. It is noth- 
ing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. 
I have said that I hare often heard him 



approve of Jackson's course in disregarding 
the decision of the Supreme Court pro- 
nouncing a National Bank constitutional. — 
He says, I did not hear him say so. He 
denies the accuracy of my recollection. I 
say he ought to know better (han I, but I 
will make no question about this thing, 
though it still seems to me that I heard 
him say it twenty times. I will tell him 
though, that he now claims to stand on the 
Cincinnati platform, which affirms that 
Congress cannot charter a bank. And 1 
remind him of another piece of history on 
the question of respectforjudicial decisions, 
and it is a piece of Illinois history, belong- 
ing to a time when the large party to which 
Judge Douglas belonged, were displeased 
with a decision of the Supreme Court of Il- 
linois, because they had decided that a 
Governor could not remove a Secretary of 
State. You will find the whole story in 
Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that 
Judge Douglas will not deny that he was 
then in favor of overslaughing that decis- 
ion by the mode of adding five new Judges, 
so as to vote down th« four old ones. Not 
only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting 
down on that very bench as one of the five 
new Judges to break dotcn the four old ones. 
It was in this way precisely that he got his 
title of Judge. Now, when the Judge tells 
me that men appointed conditionally to sit 
as members of a court, will have to be 
catechised beforehand upon some subject, 
I say, "You know. Judge; you have tried 
it." When he says a court of this kind 
will loose the confidence of all men, will 
be prostituted and disgraced by such a pro- 
ceeding, I say, " You know best. Judge , 
you have been through the mill." But I 
cannot shake Judge Douglas' teeth loose 
from the Dred Scott decision. Like some 
obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect,) 
that will hang on when he has once got his 
teeth fixed ; you may cut off a leg, or 
you may tear away an arm, still he will not 
relax his hold. And so I may point out to 
the Judge, and say that he is bespattered 
all over, from the beginning of his polit- 
ical life to the present time, with attacks 
upon judicial decisions — I may cut off limb 
after limb of his public record, and strive 
to wrench him from a single dictum of the 
court — yet I cannot divert him from it. — 
He hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott de- 
cision. These things show there is a pur- 
pose strong as death and eternity for which 
he adheres to this decision, and for which 



24 



he will adhere to all other decisions of the 
same court — Abraham Lincolrts Speech, in 
reply to Judge Douglas at Ottaica, Aug. 
21, 186^. r> (i 

If the opinion of the Supreme Ccurt 
covers the whole ground of this act it ought 
not to control the Co-ordinate authority of 
this government. The Congress, the Exe- 
cutive and the Court must each for itself 
be guided by its own opinion of the Con- 
stitution. Each public officer who takes an 
oath to support the Constitution, swears 
that he will support it as he understands it, 
and not as it is understood by others. It 
is as much the duty of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the Senate and of the Presi- 
dent to decide upon the constitutionality of 
any bill or resolution which may be pre- 
sented to them for passage or approval, as 
it is of the supreme judges when it may be 
brought before them for judicial decision. 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUPREME 
COURT MUST NOT THEREFORE BE 
PERMITTED TO CONTROL THE CON- 
GRESS OR THE EXECUTIVE.— ^m^/ew 
Jackso7i. 

YOU SEEM TO CONSIDER THE 
JUDGES AS THE ULTIMATE ARBI- 
TERS OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL 
QUESTIONS, A VERY DANGEROUS 
DOCTRINE INDEED, AND ONE WHICH 
WOULD PLACE US UNDER THE DES- 
POTISM OF AN OLIGARCHY. OUR 
JUDGES ARE AS HONEST AS OTHER 
MEN, AND NOT MORE SO, THEY HAVE 
WITH OTHERS THE SAME PASSIONS 
FOR PARTY, FOR POWER AND THE 
PRIVILEGE OF THEIR CORPS. THE 
JUDICIARY OP THE UNITED STATES 
IS THE SUBTILE CORPS OF SAPPERS 
AND MINERS, CONSTANTLY WORK- 
ING UNDER GROUND TO UNDERMINE 
THE FOUNDATION OF OUR CONFED- 
ERATED FABRIC— Thomas Jefferson. 

History is philosophy teaching by exam- 
ple. From what judges have attempted and 
have done in times past, and in England, we 
may draw some pretty shrewd conclusions as 
to what, if unchecked, they may attempt, 
and may do, in times present, and in Amer- 
ica. Nor let any man say that the following 
pages present a collection of judicial por- 
traits distorted and caricatured to a^we an 
occasion. They have been borrowed, word 
for word, from the Lives of the Chief Jus- 
ices and the Chancellors of England, by 
Lord Campell, himself a lawyer and a 
judge, and though a liberal-minded and 
free spoken man, by no means without 



quite a sufficient share of the esprit du 
corps of the profession. Derived from such 
a source, not only may the facts stated in 
the following be relied upon, but the ex- 
pressions of opinion upon points of law are 
entitled to all the weight of high profes- 
sional authority. 

Nor let it be sn,id that these biographies 
relate to ancient times, and can have no 
parallelism, or but little, to the present state 
of affairs among us here in America. The 
times which they include are the times of 
the the struggle in Great Britain hetween 
the ideas of free government and attempts 
at the establishment of despotism; and that 
is precisely the one now going on among us 
here in Amiricu, with this sole difference, 
that over the water, among our Britfsh fore- 
fathers, it was the despotism of a monarch 
that was sought to be established ; here in 
America, the despotism of some two hun- 
dred petty tyrants, more or less, in the 
shape of so many slaveholders, who, not 
content with lording it over their several 
plantations, are now attempting, by com- 
bination among themselves, and by the aid 
of northern tools and mercenaries, such as 
despots always find, to lord it over the 
Union, and to establish the policy of slave- 
holding as that of the nation. In Great 
Britain, the struggle between despotism and 
free institutions closed with the revolution 
of 1688, with which these biographies ter- 
minate. Since that time the politics of 
that country have consisted of hardly more 
than of jostlings between the Ins and the 
Outs, with no very material variance be- 
tween them in their social ideas. Among 
us the great struggle between slaveholding 
despotism and republican equality has but 
lately come to a head, and yet remains un- 
determined. It exhibits, especially in the 
conduct of the courts and the lawyers, 
many parallels to the similar struggle for- 
merly carried on in Great Britain. That 
struggle terminated at last with the deposi- 
tion and banishment of the Stuart family, 
and the reestablishment in full vigor of the 
ancient liberties of England, as embodied 
in the Bill of Eights. And so may ours 
terminate, in the reduction ef those who, 
not content to be brethren seek to be mas- 
ters, to the republican level of equal and 
common citizenship, and in the reestablish- 
ment of emancipation, freedom, and the 
Rights of Man proclaimed in our Declara- 
tion of Independence, as the national and 
eternal policy of these United States ! — In- 
troduction to Lives of Atrocipvs Judges. 



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